The New Road
by sammac
Summary: After failing to disarm a photon torpedo, Admiral Katrina Cornwell wakes up on the USS Voyager. Set during Voyager Season 4, shortly after "The Raven." Story is complete and will be posted one chapter at a time. Alternative Universe
1. The New Road

I'm alive.

I can't be alive because a photon torpedo detonated in my face.

But somehow I am. I'm alive.

Talk about baptism by fire. As it turns out, naming me might be the only good thing my mother ever did for me. I must have nine lives. First I survived my childhood with Daddy, then a Klingon sarcophagus, and now a damned photon torpedo. I'd ask what's next, but I know better.

" … radiation burns to so many layers of tissue that I had to take a DNA sample from her bone marrow in order to make an identification. Meet Vice Admiral Katrina Cornwell." When I finally tune into the nearest voice, it belongs to a man, unfamiliar but possibly in his mid-40s. "She was born at the turn of the 23rd century and died in an explosion on the _USS Enterprise_ in 2257. Sadly, her records seem to have fallen victim to the end of the Federation-Klingon War. What we know about her is fragmentary at best and mostly from the early part of her career."

"I'll take whatever you can give me." The answer belongs to a woman, short and decisive, also somewhere in her 40s. "Start with her age."

"Fifty-eight. According to Starfleet records, her background is in psychiatry and psychotherapy, but she also attended command school and was listed as being part of the command division at the time of her death. Prior to her promotion, she served a tour of duty as a psychiatrist on board the _USS Enterprise_ under Captain Robert April."

"Psychotherapy."

"Obviously, that training could be of great assistance on _Voyager_, but I'm afraid it's going to be a while before she's in any shape to provide counseling to anyone but herself. Her world has been turned upside down, in more ways than one."

"Of course. More than a century through time and clear across the galaxy. She's missed some of the Federation's most pivotal history. I can't imagine how difficult this is going to be for her."

So I'm somewhere in the mid-to-late 24th century and in either the Gamma or Delta Quadrant. I'm on a Federation ship, _Voyager_, that has no counselor and what sounds like only a small sickbay. And if they think my training might be useful, I gather they must not have access to Starfleet resources. If that's the case, I know where my future lies.

It seems that the photon torpedo may have killed Admiral Katrina Cornwell. It's Dr. Cornwell who survived. My medical license is obviously seriously out-of-date, but that should be easy enough to correct.

"I was thinking more of her physical condition."

"With hair and a recognizable face now, she's already made remarkable progress. You were able to heal the radiation burns entirely?"

"Regrettably, no. I have, however, been able to greatly minimize the damage—aided, no doubt, by the fact that she suffered full-thickness radiation burns only to her chest. She had second-degree burns on her face, back, arms, and lower body, as well as in the interior of her lungs, and only first-degree burns to her palms. Oddly, the backs of her hands were uninjured."

"That should be impossible. She should have overwhelming amounts of ion radiation everywhere in and on her body."

"I have no explanation. All of the first- and second-degree burns have been healed without scarring or nerve damage, including the burns to the interior of her lungs. The third-degree burns have left permanent scars, although it's minimal and shouldn't restrict her movement in any way. I've also managed to restore sensation to the third-degree burn areas by reconstructing portions of her peripheral nervous system."

"Pain?"

"As usual, the reconstructed skin may be hypersensitive for a few days, but any associated pain should be mild and short-term."

He's wrong about the pain. My lungs feel as though I'm breathing in fire, and my skin feels as though it's burning. Whatever they've dressed me in, it hurts like hell. If there is no neuropathic explanation for the pain, it must be psychogenic in origin. All right. I know how to manage that.

"Captain? You appear to be lost in thought."

"Parade rest."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I was thinking how she could have sustained the pattern of injuries that you described. I'm not entirely sure that it's an explanation, but to have spared the backs of her hands and only minimally damaged her palms, she must have been standing at parade rest. Like this."

"A remarkable display of courage."

_Voyager_'s captain moves to the side of the bed where I'm laying, close enough to my ear that I can hear her body absorbing sound and feel the associated tickle on the side of my face. Even from a third of a meter away, that's enough to set my cheek on fire. I push past the roar of the pain, to focus on the sound and feel of her body standing close beside me.

"I'm certain that any woman with enough courage to meet a photon torpedo head-on can learn to live with scars. Are there any injuries you haven't been able to treat?"

"Two, I'm afraid. Her face and back received only second-degree burns, but they sustained a disproportionate amount of damage owing to her history. Prior to what clearly was a brutal death, our admiral appears to have survived an equally brutal life."

"How so?"

I can't feel my legs again. Damn. So I'm paralyzed again, and this time I have to presume it's permanent. Fine. Based on where I still have proprioceptive awareness of my body, everything above the old injury site seems to be fine. The spinal prosthesis must have been damaged by the radiation.

"Evidently, the admiral suffered a lumbar spinal cord injury at some point prior to her death, which was treated with a technique that isn't included in any of my medical databases." The doctor hasn't joined the captain at my bedside, instead standing a few meters away—at a display, based on the way his voice seems to be reflecting off of something. "It may have been experimental. At any rate, the blast melted the prosthetic neural connections. I can't repair it, and the injury is too old to be treated using modern techniques."

"So she's paralyzed."

"I've already begun designing a custom support chair for her, but naturally I'll wait for her input before I replicate it."

That's a good thing, because I'm damned sure I'm going to have input. There's something wrong with my eyes again. The left eye seems to be gone entirely, and the right can barely stand the glare from the overhead lights even with my eyelids closed. I'm going to have to get up sooner rather than later or I'll develop a glare headache. It's taking every bit of willpower I have not to squint, to just lay here and breathe and eavesdrop.

"That's one injury. What's the other?"

"The intense light and radiation from the photon torpedo blast caused catastrophic damage to both eyes, including complete loss of function in her left eye. I've managed to remove the corneal opacities and heal the damage to the front structures of the right eye, but the damage to her retina and optic nerve are resisting my attempts to repair them. She will have sight, but it will be extremely limited. Functionally speaking, she'll be blind."

"Why aren't you able to make repairs?"

"Optic nerve damage is notoriously difficult to treat even under the best of circumstances, so I'm not surprised by that. The resistance of the retinal tissues is more problematic, but I believe I have an explanation. According to Starfleet records, she had full-globe transplants in both eyes at age 15. Lab-grown organs were a common treatment method in the early 23rd century, but they were phased out in the mid-2220s specifically because of their resistance to treatment and high failure rate."

"What about modern implants?"

"I'm afraid that's impossible. The methods used to connect the transplanted globes left too much scar tissue to make new neural connections. I've taken the liberty of removing the non-functional left eye and replacing it with the next best thing: an inorganic prosthesis designed to match her organic eye exactly, except that it contains a plenoptic microcamera."

"What good will a camera do, if she can't see with it?"

It will give me information. I had cameras when I was a child, one mounted on an eyeglass frame and the other handheld. I love the idea of having a single camera integrated into my own eye socket. This doctor's knowledge base and creativity impresses me.

"The goal, in this case, will be to provide her with data. The new support chair that I'm designing will include a sensor array capable of assisting with obstacle avoidance and negotiating elevation changes, and I'll be integrating an onboard computer capable of receiving transmissions from the microcamera. I'll be able to program the computer to extract information on demand, such as to read print or identify a face. While I understand that it isn't the same as being able to see, with practice she will be able to function independently with it."

"Blind and paralyzed, displaced through time and space, and nearly burned alive. She has a very difficult road ahead of her."

"Agreed."

"But if this is the best we can do for her, given her circumstances, then we'll just have to support her. That's all there is to it. How long will it take her to learn to use a system like the one you've described?"

Finally, the doctor approaches my bedside, standing on the side across from the captain but at closer to waist level. He's far enough away from my face, at any rate, that I can't hear or feel him. "That depends on her."

I suppose that's my cue. I've heard enough to know that I'm among good people and that I'm needed. That's enough. "As long as it's designed well, I should adapt reasonably quickly." I roll my head to the side, finally getting relief from both the glare and the sound-induced pressure on the side of my face. The relief on my skin is palpable. "Turn down the damn lights; I'm getting a headache."

"Computer, deactivate intensive care unit light. Welcome back, Admiral. How long have you been awake?"

The lights directly overhead snap off and I face the ceiling again with my eyes still closed, letting my eye muscles rest before I strain them by using them to look. "Long enough to take inventory, compare my notes against yours, and get my head on straight. I didn't catch your name, Doctor."

"That's quite possibly because I haven't caught it either." He sounds almost apologetic. "The fact is, I'm a hologram. I was designed to be an emergency supplement for the organic medical staff, but they were all killed. I've had to fill in as Chief Medical Officer."

Solid-state holographic environments were in the very early stages of development the last time I visited the Starfleet Research Center. It wasn't nearly this sophisticated, of course, but it at least allows me to understand what I'm dealing with. "I see." Their doctor is an artificial intelligence. "Give me a minute."

"Of course, Admiral. You could never have anticipated being treated by a hologram. Take your time."

Given what I've just witnessed with Airiam and Control, I'm skeptical of artificial intelligences. I'd like to think it's a healthy suspicion, but I'm honestly still too traumatized to judge. The fact is, I thought he sounded impressive and friendly until I realized he wasn't made of flesh and blood, so I have to admit that, at least for the moment, he seems benign. I offer up my hand. "It sounds like you're doing a hell of a job, Doctor."

Fortunately, given how strong his grip is, my hand is the only part of me that doesn't hurt. "Thank you. We're happy to have you on board—surprised, but happy nevertheless."

Shifting my attention, I open my eyes to offer my hand across the bed. "Captain … ?"

"Janeway." My mental image of her comes from her hand: petite build with long fingers and smooth skin, a strong grip. "Kathryn Janeway. Welcome to _Voyager_, Admiral."

"Thank you." She's standing on my left, but I do have a small field of severely damaged vision in the medial and superior quadrants of my right eye. I roll my head left to bring her into the medial field, not expecting much but hoping to at least color in the picture: black uniform, red shoulders, maybe red hair. "I need specifics. What year is it, and what quadrant? And how did I get here?"

"The year is 2374, and we're in the Delta Quadrant. As for how you got here, that's more complicated. I'm afraid you simply appeared."

"Appeared."

"I assure you, we're as puzzled by it as you are."

"That's—" I start to say it's impossible, but then so is surviving a photon torpedo detonating at point-blank range. Instead, I shake off the whole question of my survival. "My father used to warn me against looking gift horses in the mouth. In this case, I suspect he was right."

"I'm a scientist," Janeway says. "It goes against my nature to write off anomalies as insignificant, but in this case you may be right. We've been looking for an explanation for several hours already, and we've come up empty-handed."

"Don't waste too many of your resources looking for an explanation. It won't change anything."

"No, I suppose it won't."

"And based on what you said earlier, I gather that the Federation must not extend this far. If that's the case, you probably can't afford to waste resources."

The change in Janeway's tone is noticeable, and her stance softens to reflect it. "I'm afraid you're right about that. We are a very, very long way from Federation space."

I try to place the tone. Guilt, maybe? I don't know her well enough yet to be sure.

"I'm sorry we have no way to get you home."

Clear across the galaxy from the safety of Federation space and the support of Starfleet, the last thing I want Janeway doing is worrying about me. I smile at her. "Who says I'm not home?"

* * *

Disclaimer: _Star Trek: Voyager_ and _Star Trek: Discovery_ are the property of CBS. I'm just borrowing the characters for a while.


	2. Second Chances

"Are you sure you'll be all right alone for a few minutes?"

From what I understand, _Voyager_'s CMO does have a nurse, but his shifts are limited by the fact that he's also Captain Janeway's best pilot and we're near the perimeter of hostile territory. The Doctor offered to have him sent down from the bridge if I preferred not to be alone, but all I'm doing is resting on a biobed. I don't need a babysitter. "I've survived worse places than sickbay, Doctor. I can manage."

"I'm sure you can. All the same, if something changes—"

"I have the communicator badge you gave me." During the war, Section 31 started building miniaturized communicators into badges because it improved the efficiency of communication between agents. Sometime during the last 117 years, those black badges have become gold and been distributed to the Fleet at large. That's how I come to have one. "Go. I'll be fine."

"I'll be back as quickly as possible. Computer, transfer the Emergency Medical Holographic program to Holodeck 1."

After Captain Janeway left, the Doctor moved me to a standard biobed so I could lean against something while we talked. I would rather have worked with him on sitting up correctly, but until I understand his program's parameters better, I'm not willing to subvert his agenda. He wanted to discuss my new mobility chair, and I do need the chair, so lying still to focus on the details was fine. But now that he's not around to be concerned about what I'm doing, I see no reason to stay lying around. I know where my injury is and what muscles I've lost, and also which muscles I have left, so I know more or less what I'm doing. I've never been very strong, but I can at least lift my own bodyweight. That should be enough.

I'm upright and have gotten both legs over the side of the bed when the door opens from the corridor. "Doctor, I need you to run a diagnostic on this—" A woman with yellow shoulders barges in, then stops. "Does the Doctor know you're sitting up?"

"No." Janeway was wearing red, which means color designations have been reversed sometime in the last century: red is for command, yellow for operations. That means she's either a security officer, a communications specialist, or an engineer. "He transferred himself to Holodeck 1 to run a simulation of something involving my chair. That's all I know."

"So you decided to try your luck while he was gone."

"Why not? Today does seem to be my lucky day." When she ventures close enough, I hold out my hand. "Katrina Cornwell."

"B'Elanna Torres, Chief Engineer." She's got one hell of a grip, for someone with a Human last name. I don't recognize the origin of her first name, and I suspect it might not be Human. I'd ask, but she doesn't give me a chance. "Is it true?"

"What's that?"

"The rumor is, you were killed by a photon torpedo."

If I close my eyes, I can still see the blue cloud mushrooming toward me and then overtaking me. It's going to be a while before I stop seeing that. "Well, it didn't have my name on it. It was lodged in the hull, and we couldn't get it to disarm or dislodge, and the blast door was jammed from the outside. The only way left to close it was from the inside. Obviously, I'd rather not have been in the room with it when it detonated."

"That's got to be a hell of a thing—to know you're about to die and then wake up a century later on the wrong side of the galaxy."

"Hey, I woke up. You won't catch me complaining. The way I see it, this must be the universe's way of repaying me."

She snorts. "Some repayment. A hundred-plus years out of time and halfway across the galaxy–not to mention you're, what, paralyzed?"

"And blind. But both were pre-existing conditions, so you can't blame the torpedo. I'd already been patched up a couple times."

"You're joking."

"Not at all. I was blind for part of my childhood, and the spinal cord injury is what happens when you send a psychotherapist into a war to do a diplomat's job."

When I was little, I learned to put people at ease with what happened to me by not talking about it and pretending that nothing had happened. As an adult, I've also gotten reasonably adept at using humor to minimize the truth, when my preferred brand of make-believe isn't an option. I was trying to be funny, but the way she backs away from me says I missed the mark. "I didn't even think about the war. A Klingon did that to you?"

I don't understand her reaction, but it sounds like she has something personal invested in my answer, so in this case I aim for the plain truth. "It was war; it wasn't personal. Not for either of us. And, anyway, I was borderline unconscious at the time." I shrug it off, far more interested in her reaction to the conversation than in my own medical history. "You're backing up. What did I say?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry. I just—" She backs up another few steps. "I'm Klingon."

Oh. That explains the strong grip and the unfamiliar first name. She doesn't look like any Klingon I've ever seen, but then she also has a Human last name. And, at any rate, I'm too blind to be judging anyone by appearances anyway. I know better than to trust my eyes. "Are you? I had no idea."

"Half. My mother's Klingon. My father's Human." She dips her head and starts backing up again. "I should go. The last thing you probably want near you is another Klingon."

That's the problem with wars: they project emotions across species for long, long after they're fought. "Actually, the inside of a blast door is at the top of that list." I motion for her to come closer again. "If a half-Human, half-Klingon can exist openly in this century, let alone serve as Chief Engineer on a Starfleet ship, clearly I have nothing to be afraid of."

She hesitates, then ventures a few steps closer before freezing again. "Don't be so sure. I lose my cool and scream all the time; I've been known to break noses."

I offer a conciliatory smile. "That's all right; we all have tempers. And I know how to scream back."

That gives her pause. "You do?"

"I learned from a Klingon. Does that make you feel any better?"

"Maybe." She eases another few steps closer, but she still isn't back where she started. "You really don't care?"

"Machines scare me, not people."

That makes her laugh. "I'm usually the opposite." This time, she makes her way to the side of the biobed and stands close enough that I can actually catch a glimpse of what looks like shoulder-length brunette hair. "This is surreal."

Now that we're this close to each other, my thoughts spin to the end of the war. The decision to destroy Qo'noS meant committing genocide, but at the time it seemed to be the only way to preserve the Federation. I gave the order willingly, but not lightly. When Burnham found a better way, of course I felt relief, but that's not all I felt. Compartmentalizing the decision allowed me to move forward, but it did nothing to relieve the guilt. I've never processed that. "More surreal than you know."

She tilts her head at me. "What's that supposed to mean?" Then, before I can figure out how to answer her, she grunts. "I guess you probably had to give some pretty tough orders during the war."

"You could say that." If we'd followed my plan to end the war, Ms. Torres wouldn't exist. From where I sit now, I can't even fathom that.

I expect her to fall away again, but she doesn't. Instead, she pulls herself onto the biobed next to me. "There's a conflict going on back in the Alpha Quadrant, not quite a war but almost. Not everyone on this ship went to Starfleet Academy. Some of us were the enemy when we got to the Delta Quadrant, and we're only here because Captain Janeway gave us a chance."

"I see."

"Let's just say I understand having to pick between two rotten choices. Sometimes you just make whatever decision gets the job done, no matter how bad it seems, and figure you'll take the time to regret it later. There are actually a lot of us on _Voyager_ who understand that. Desperation is ugly."

Then maybe I've finally found my place. "In that case—" For what feels like the first time in two or three years, I take a deep breath and let my muscles start to unwind. The air is still laced with fire, but at least it's fresh. I hold out my hand to her for a second time. "—here's to second chances?"

She takes my hand again and pumps it. "To second chances."

I only have partial hip muscles and my sensation in that same area is limited, so my balance is wobbly, especially in the absence of good vision. I'm just starting to feel marginally balanced without propping myself up on an arm when my badge signals an incoming message and startles me. "EMH to Admiral Cornwell."

"Go ahead, Doctor." It takes me a split second too long to realize I'm tilting backward. By the time I do, it's too late. _Damn._ But a firm hand between my shoulder blades stops me. "I promise I haven't run off anywhere, Doctor. I'm still here." I smile over my shoulder at Torres to thank her, then put my hands down to take over holding myself steady.

"Very funny. The question is whether or not you're all right. Your pain indicators, respiration, and heart rate are all alarmingly high."

How in the hell is he watching my biofunction monitor when he's not in sickbay? And then it occurs to me. He's a hologram. His program is part of the ship's computer, so of course he has off-site access to my biofunction readings. As disconcerting as it is, it makes sense. "Doctor, you need to make a distinction between the state of my body and the state of me."

He doesn't respond immediately. When he does, I get the sense that I've said something profound enough to be integrated into his psychological subroutines. "Please clarify that statement."

Torres slides down off the biobed.

"You're right that I'm in pain. A lot of it. Every time I breathe, my chest feels like I'm breathing in fire, and I hurt in places I can't even feel. But it's possible that I'm going to have some degree of pain for the rest of my life, so I need you to trust that I know how to manage it. Biofunction readings only tell one small part of the story."

He hesitates again but doesn't argue. "My apologies, Admiral. I'll be back shortly. I'm almost through with the simulation."

"Don't hurry on my account, but Ms. Torres is here looking for you. I think she needs you to run a diagnostic on something."

"Understood. EMH out."

Torres shifts. "That was impressive. I've never heard anyone put the Doctor in his place before."

I shrug. "I'm a psychiatrist by training. He and I speak the same language." Now I am in pain. As long as I was distracted, I wasn't really paying attention to how much the simple act of breathing hurts. But now that he's called my attention to it again, it's all I can think about.

Torres backs up a step and shifts into a stance that looks formal. "Admiral, I—"

"Katrina." In some respects, being on _Voyager_ is the same as being on the _Enterprise_ or even _Discovery_, but in other respects it's also different because we're so far from the Federation. This is my home now, conceivably for the rest of my life. That means these people are my family. I need space to be Katrina first, not just The Admiral. "We can get to ranks when they matter. Most of the time they don't."

"Katrina. Fine. I'm still sorry."

To me, the apology is as telling as a face. She's managed to sound genuinely apologetic and irritable at the same time. That's the personality of a hybrid, two competing sides always fighting a war neither can ever fully win. "For what? For a few minutes, I actually forgot how much pain I'm in."

"Really?"

"One of the benefits of having been a psychotherapist is that I have experience with helping people manage pain. Staying focused on other things is one of the best tricks I know. Question." I touch the unfamiliar contours of the device the EMH gave me. Section 31 hadn't settled on a name for it yet. "Is this a communicator badge, a combadge, or a comms badge?"

"A combadge, but they weren't invented until the early 24th century."

Uh oh. "They weren't in general use yet, but Section 31 was using them."

"What was using them?"

Oh shit. Regardless of whether Section 31 still exists, if their very existence has been forgotten, and an accurate rendering of history with it, we're in serious danger of repeating history—especially with an artificial intelligence onboard. "You've never heard of Section 31?"

"No. What was it?"

"Apparently, just something that's been lost to the flow of history. So what kind of diagnostic do you need the Doctor to run?"

Allowing me to distract her, Torres reaches for something she left laying on the biobed to my left. "Ships were running on duotronic circuitry in your day, right?"

"Officially? Yes. I know Richard Daystrom was starting to work on something more powerful—I think he was calling it multitronics—but he wasn't to the point of installing it on ships yet."

She grunts. "He didn't get that far for another decade. Interesting. Well, _Voyager_ herself runs on something a couple steps more advanced than that—which is what this thing is—but the Doctor's program actually still runs on multitronics."

I angle what little vision I have toward the area where her hands should be and catch a glimpse of something that could be blue. I'm not sure it was worth the effort. "I can see you're holding something, but what is it?"

She grunts again, this time holding the maybe-blue thing out to me. "Sorry, I keep forgetting. Here."

It's roughly square, some kind of semi-viscous substance contained in a bag attached to a metallic frame. "It feels like plasma, but what is it?"

"My worst nightmare: a bio-neural gel pack. When they phased out duotronics, we went to isolinear circuitry, which is still used in most starships. Naturally, the first ship built with bio-neural circuitry gets lost in the Delta Quadrant, where we have no replacements for damaged gel packs. They make _Voyager_ faster than pretty much every other starship out there, but because they contain organic material, they're also susceptible to viruses and other organic problems."

"Which is what leads to an engineer coming to sickbay for a diagnosis on a piece of equipment. Got it."

I hand the gel pack back to her, and she laughs. "I guess things were less weird back in the day."

"Unless, of course, you ran out of mycelium to power your spore drive and had to terraform an entire planet to get it up and running again."

She laughs again. "Your what kind of drive?"

The spore drive must no longer exist, or else _Voyager_ wouldn't be trapped this far from Federation space. Even so, it was such a prominent experiment that Torres should at least recognize its name. Instead, Starfleet evidently buried all knowledge of it, along with knowledge of Section 31 and certain aspects of history. But why? That more or less condemns us to repeat our same mistakes. You can't learn from something you don't remember. "Just something we were playing around with during the war; I guess it must not have come to anything. At any rate, suffice to say that things could be strange 117 years ago too. So—" I gesture toward the gel pack. "—what are your patient's symptoms?"

"High fever, fatigue, and aggressive outbursts."

"Aggressive outbursts?"

"We've been getting these weird computational lag times, so I sent a tech to check it out. The damned thing burned him, so while I was performing first aid I sent someone else to take over, and it shocked her."

"Every time you touch it, it lashes out at you. It sounds like it's in pain."

"Impossible. Its organic components aren't that sophisticated."

I laugh. "Being stuck in the hull of a starship, I would hope not. It won't be experiencing pain like we do, obviously, but pain is just the body's way of sending out signals to tell us that something's wrong. Even gentle animals usually lash out when they're in pain. Have you checked all of its connections?"

She doesn't answer at first, and she's retreating toward the door by the time she does. "You could be a genius."

"Maybe. Alternatively, are you familiar with the old saying, 'when all you've got is a hammer, everything's a nail'?"

"Yes." She stops near the door to laugh, then sobers just as fast. "But no. We were having power surges in that same relay junction earlier this week. We thought we fixed it, but maybe we didn't. I don't know why I didn't think of that."

The door opens and closes before I can answer, and I turn my attention to maneuvering my legs back onto the table. Hanging probably isn't good for my circulation, and I can't see or feel problems building, so I need to be careful.

A few seconds later, the door slides open again. "By the way, thank you." She's calmer this time. "You're welcome in engineering anytime."

"Thanks." Command school emphasized the need for a leader to be well-rounded, hence I know my way around a photon torpedo well enough to try to disarm one. It may take me the rest of my career—hell, maybe even the rest of my life—but eventually I'll get back up to speed. Besides, I'd like to see Torres in her own element. "I'll hold you to that."

"I'll look forward to it."


	3. Anachronism

By evening, I'm mobile enough to eat supper in the mess hall. I've been sitting at the end of a large table near the windows for about an hour now, and a fair number of crewmembers have stopped by to welcome me. They seem genuine, but no one has joined me at the table yet. I can't tell if they're just not used to having a stranger on board, or if it's an artifact of my rank, but for now it doesn't matter. I'm just happy to be among the living again.

" … not like you can hide from her forever, Tom." Initially, the voice catches my attention because I recognize the name of its owner. I lock in and stay with it because I seem to be the subject of the conversation. "You're a nurse; she's a doctor. You're going to run into her in sickbay sooner or later."

"Not for another two days." I file the voice away as belonging to Tom Paris, the EMH's nurse. "Come on, Harry."

"You're kidding me," Torres says, although I'm not sure what she's responding to. "Not you too."

"B'Elanna, she's an admiral. I'm sure she doesn't want the company of the lowest ensign on the senior staff."

"She said ranks don't usually matter."

"Easy to say when you're an admiral."

When I made that comment in sickbay, I meant it as a basic philosophy, but in the limited context of the moment he does have a point. With the highest rank on the ship, and in the twilight of my career, it's easy for me to decide when rank does and doesn't matter. But for an ambitious ensign stuck on a starship with no chance at promotion, constant reminders of his low position undoubtedly do mean that rank always matters.

Since Torres and the young man both seem to be facing my direction, I smile and hold up a hand in hopes of him reading it as an invitation. If he would come over, he'd find that shattered career plans are something we have in common. Restarting a psychotherapy practice and cohabiting with an artificial intelligence aren't how I planned on spending my golden years.

"She can't see you waving, Harry. You have to say something to her."

"Oh. I mean, I knew that. I just—" Embarrassed and self-flagellating are presumably not the first impressions that Harry wanted to make, but it's too late. That's the voice my brain files away under the name Harry, last name still pending. "B'Elanna, how can I be so smart and so stupid all at the same time? That's why I'm still an ensign, isn't it?"

"No, this is." She starts to move in my direction, only to stop within a meter of where she started. "Seriously, Harry. You and Tom both need to get over yourselves. Did either one of you ever stop to think that maybe this isn't about you at all?"

"B'Elanna?"

She snorts, then walks away. "No, I didn't think so." After that, I lose her until she sets her tray down on my left and pulls out the associated chair. "Sorry about those two."

"It goes with the rank, I'm afraid."

"Which is why you're trying not to use it."

"If I insist long enough, eventually everyone will get the message." One of the rights of the admiralty is that I set my own tone, apart from the tone of the ship's captain. I learned to de-emphasize rank from the likes of Bob April, Chris Pike, and my Gabriel Lorca, all of whom cared more about the content of a person's character than about his or her rank. For Bob, Chris, and Gabe, to address a person by rank was a matter of respect, not hierarchy, and I tend to use it the same way.

"That could take a while."

All three men also had very laidback command styles. Based on the reaction of _Voyager_'s crew to me, and also on the way the Doctor initially had my chair programmed, I get the distinct impression that Janeway has a much harder-driving personality. Rank matters here, especially within the senior staff. "I seem to have time. So did you figure out what was wrong with your gel pack?"

"Yes. It was just like you said: the junction was bad. Once we replaced it, the gel pack quit attacking us."

"Lucky guess. You realize that, right?"

"Doesn't matter. If I woke up 117 years ago and had to diagnose a problem with your—what did you call it? a spore drive?—I wouldn't be making lucky guesses like that." She prods at something, utensil clinking against her tray, but doesn't eat. "Leola root coleslaw. This is a new low, even for Neelix."

I assume she's referring to the untouched bed of shredded tuber left on my tray. "I'm sure it's fine. My stomach is just hypersensitive right now. The squash and the pudding went down all right. I'm just taking the rest slowly."

That makes her laugh. "Trust me, it's not your stomach. Neelix's cooking does it to everyone at first."

"Oh?"

"You should've been on board when he first set up the kitchen. Your stomach should adapt in a few days."

I try again, but the pain-induced tightness in my chest kicks it back out again, in the form of a violent coughing fit that momentarily quiets the rest of the mess hall. "Good to know." The coughing leaves my voice hoarse and my diaphragm sore. "What did you call it?"

"Leola root. He puts it in everything; apparently it has nutritional value. And, no, your taste buds never get used to it."

"Fair warning." For the moment, I'm not sure that there's much point to trying again. It's distracting everyone else and making my pain worse. "All the same, I think I may need to hold off for tonight."

Just inside the viable portion of my visual field, she jabs her utensil toward the bulkhead I'm facing, and its metal catches an overhead light. "Use your replicator rations to order something you can actually eat. That's what they're for."

Replicator rations: something else I know nothing about—although the purpose of rationing anything seems obvious, given _Voyager_'s circumstances. "Pardon?"

"You're kidding me." Before I can clarify what I'm asking about, she jumps up and flags someone over. "Chakotay!"

That name belongs to _Voyager_'s first officer. I know that. But since he hasn't introduced himself yet, I couldn't begin to guess which red shoulder she's waving at.

"Welcome to _Voyager_, Admiral." A tray sets down on my right, and the man behind it offers a handshake. His hands are large, which corroborates what my eyes tell me about his size, and his grip is sturdy without being overpowering, although I can feel that he's holding back. "I was planning on stopping by sickbay once the Doctor let us know that you were mobile, but I never got the message. My apologies."

"That's my fault." The Doctor mentioned that was the plan, but our first few hours together were rough and I wasn't ready to pretend that they hadn't been. I needed space, and this was the only place I could think to find it. "We were talking shop, and when I mentioned being hungry, he brought me down himself. It's Katrina for now. I'm pleased to meet you."

The moment he sits down, B'Elanna starts in on him. "Chakotay, she doesn't even have replicator rations."

"Of course she has replicator rations, B'Elanna. She also has quarters, whenever the Doctor releases her to them. The better question is whether she even knows what a replicator is."

The one definitive thing I know about the replicator is that it's so ubiquitous they take it for granted. Everyone has mentioned it, from replicating food here in the mess hall to replicating my mobility chair, but no one has thought to explain it. "Based on context, I think it's similar to a matter synthesizer. I assume you're rationing it to preserve power."

"We've given you a few extra rations to help you get settled in. You would definitely be excused for wanting a meal that doesn't include leola root. I would say it's an acquired taste, but it's more that your body has to build up a tolerance. If you'd like, I can help you replicate something edible."

When I first collected my tray, the chef tried to tell me what he was putting on it, but I didn't recognize most of what he said and people were piling up behind me. I wasn't ready to hold up the line with questions, so I figured I could just wing it. What I didn't take into account was my hyper-aroused nervous system. "I appreciate the thought, both of you, but I really am fine. I don't know what it was that I got down, but I am sure I won't starve before morning."

Chakotay points with his fork toward his own tray, and I catch just enough of the motion to try and follow it but not enough to succeed. "It looks like you got down most of the steamed chadre'kab. That's what was sitting on top of the leola root."

As an ingredient, it had promise. It actually had the mild taste and soft texture of a cooked winter squash, a little too bland as prepared but at least inoffensive. "Sorry, I missed that. What kind of cobb?"

"Chadre'kab. It's some kind of Talaxian gourd."

I'm most likely going to keep running into these conversations for a long time, the kind where I have to strip away my ignorance like peeling back layers of an onion. "Talaxian?"

"Neelix's species. At any rate, chadre'kab is usually safe no matter how he fixes it, and I'm told his puddings are usually edible, if you're into that sort of thing."

Now I'm starting to make sense of what Neelix tried to tell me when he was serving up my tray: steamed chadre'kab on a bed of leola root slaw, spiced berry pudding, and one other thing. I touch the end of the vegetable I tried and failed to bite into earlier. "I didn't catch what he called these. Something about a stalk?"

"Agrazza stalks," Torres says. "Don't. Unless you're descended from a beaver, they're almost as bad as the leola root. Chakotay, the captain isn't coming down to dinner tonight?"

"Not tonight. She's trying to clear a stack of PADDs off of her desk. But she sends her regards."

With a huff, Torres takes a bite of something that sounds like a twig cracking, which I assume must be an agrazza stalk. "Katrina, you only ate half your dinner. You should go back for seconds of what you can eat."

The last decent meal I ate must have been sometime significantly prior to the torpedo; I think it may even have been while we were still en route to Xahea. Going back for seconds is tempting. But the mess hall is crowded now and I'm not sure how to find my way through all the bodies to the kitchen. I haven't negotiated a large communal dining space as a blind person since I was a first-year cadet, and even with every resource available to me I still hated it. Without my two most powerful tools, I feel stuck.

Chakotay pushes back from the table. "Let me get it for you."

"Thank you. Once I learn the layout of the mess hall and update my crowd management skills, I should be fine."

"Of course. I imagine you have a lot to figure out. I'll be right back with this." Chakotay collects my tray, then merges into the crowd to my left. I track his uniform for a few meters, then lose him to a wall of multicolored shoulders.

I'm afraid I may be too old to figure this out. The need to see, with either my eyes or my ears, is so intense that it's almost physical, like the need for food or water or air. As a child, I discovered the intricate world of reflected sound even before I lost the last of my eyesight. The effect is that I've been visual, in one sense or another, my entire life. By the time I was school-age, I had two primary means of accessing that soundscape: the taps from a mobility cane that I got from my surrogate mother the first summer I stayed with her, and clicks from my tongue, which predated the cane by several years. Together, they became an extension of me, and I don't know how to be a blind person without them.

The Doctor tells me this chair has a navigation system that's vastly superior to both the cane and my own echolocation, and also less obtrusive, so I'm trying. But to use the system would require me to aim directly toward who- or whatever is blocking the aisle and trust the chair's embedded microsensor array and onboard computer to navigate around them. What happens if it fails, I'm not sure; I have no alternative tools at my disposal. I suppose I'll eventually learn to work with it, but I don't want to experiment this close to furniture and crowds of people. Until then, my mobility has very definite limits.

"Katrina?" Torres touches the back of my hand.

I turn my head toward her and make an effort to focus. "I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't be allowed to think that much. What did you say?"

"You don't have to apologize. I just asked if you were okay; I guess that's my answer."

Chakotay's voice emerges near Neelix and the kitchen, muffled by the wall of bodies. He asks for a clean tray with more chadre'kab and pudding.

"Thinking is probably a bad idea right now. All of my 175 years are threatening to catch up with me at once."

"Would you rather me distract you?"

Who would have imagined that the first hand of friendship extended to me here would come from a Klingon, especially one who's probably young enough to be my daughter? The universe clearly has a sense of humor. "If you would, just for tonight. Thank you."

"Sure." She dips her agrazza stalks in pudding to soften them, letting them sit long enough that they sound more like celery than tree branches. "It may take a while for people to figure out that you're nothing like Captain Janeway."

"What makes you say that?"

"She would've gone hungry rather than let anyone get food for her. She's too stubborn."

Still watching for a large pair of red shoulders to cut back through the crowd, I shrug. "One of the perks of being an admiral is that you get used to delegating tasks you'd rather not handle. I've never been fond of navigating crowds."

"Me either. I thought you liked people."

"One at a time or in small groups, yes. Crowds have an altogether different effect on me. I tolerate them better when my nervous system isn't already overloaded."

"You could've eaten in sickbay."

"No, I needed this. It's a lot, but it's been good for me."

Although there is movement heading in our direction, too many colors moving in the intermediate distance make it impossible for me to tell whether I'm seeing Chakotay or someone else. He just appears next to me and sets my tray down. "Here you are. Just chadre'kab and pudding this time."

"Thank you."

"Of course. So has the Doctor officially released you?"

"Not yet. Call it being released on my own recognizance. I told him I could find my own way back to sickbay when I was done." No matter how I've tried to convince myself to overlook the fact that the Doctor is a form of artificial intelligence, I can't do it. I'm still struggling with it. Until I make my peace, the best thing I can do is stay away.

Chakotay laughs. "And he believed you?"

Admittedly, I don't play fair. My ability to quickly isolate and exploit psychological vulnerabilities is one reason I was in such high demand during the war. The Doctor was evidently programmed with only rudimentary psychological subroutines. Since then, he's learned more than enough to manage this crew and the occasional unruly visiting patient, but he knows how much he doesn't know. That's his weakness. "He hasn't figured out what to do with me yet."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, my knowledge of psychology is far more advanced than his, and he's insecure about it. He's not used to being outclassed." Given that he was designed to act as a supplement to an organic medical staff, I suspect that his program must contain a subroutine that's never had reason to be activated before, one that makes him defer to qualified organic physicians. My own training is outdated, so I'm not entirely qualified, but it's causing enough of a conflict that I can manipulate him. "He also admitted that he's never dealt with an organic doctor."

"Outclassed." Chakotay stops eating again and lays his utensil aside, resting on the edge of his tray. "_Voyager_'s plenty big enough for the two of you without making it a competition."

"Who said anything about competition? Those are facts. My knowledge of humanoid psychology far eclipses his; his knowledge of humanoid medicine far eclipses mine. Those balances will most likely never change. Our strengths are complementary, not competitive."

The most disturbing fact of all is that I need him. If I hope to bring my psychiatric skills up to modern standards, I need to know what he knows. I also need his rehabilitative subroutines in order to be able to function with my body as it is now. I'm dependent on an artificial intelligence, and that scares me.

Possibly sensing that I'm holding back, Chakotay uneasily concedes and goes back to his food. He offers a bare-bones apology.

"What you're hearing is the two of us feeling each other out, testing where the boundaries are. Right now, he's extending me a professional courtesy by letting me have freedom." At some point tonight, I'll have to go back down to sickbay and try again to deal with the Doctor. But I haven't reached that point yet. "At the moment, I'm more at home in sickbay than I am here, so he knows I'll go back eventually. I'm just not in a hurry to do it."

"You said it earlier, when you told him to back off." B'Elanna sounds excited again, the same as when she bolted out of sickbay with the gel pack. "The two of you speak the same language."

I nod at her. "Go on."

"Back in sickbay, I said that not everyone on _Voyager_ was Starfleet. When the rest of us came on board, you can imagine there was initially a lot of friction between the two sides within departments." She stops to fiddle with the food on her tray, although she doesn't seem to be eating it at the moment. "I caused most of what went on in engineering. It took all the Maquis, and especially me, time to figure out how to coexist with Starfleet."

"Then you understand where I'm at. That's all this is. It'll pass." With my tray emptying again, I turn my attention to the drink. I hate coffee. It lies; it tastes nothing like it smells. So I aim to finish as much as I can tolerate and distract myself from the bitter aftertaste with a question. "This is the second time you've mentioned that this crew isn't all Starfleet, and now that you've mentioned a name—the Maquis?—it's time for me to know the details."

So while our meal period winds down, she and Chakotay both take turns filling me in on the political situation back home and how it brought _Voyager_'s current crew together. It involves a lot of names that I'm sure I'll have to ask again, but at least now I understand the crew's history.

"I'm not the same person I was," B'Elanna says eventually. "At least, not on the surface. But underneath I'm still the same. Even if I wanted to stop fighting, I couldn't; it's in my blood." She hangs her head. "And I hate it."

A year ago, more or less, I stood in _Discovery_'s brig and listened to L'Rell tell me that the Klingon war against the Federation would never end as long as Klingons existed. She ended the war shortly after. And now, 117 years later, I'm sitting with a Klingon who's running a Starfleet engine room and wearing a Starfleet uniform. "Even Klingons can change. The impulse to fight can be controlled, channeled. It's a question of motivation."

"You sound so sure."

"Because I've already seen the impossible happen once. The Federation-Klingon War was never supposed to end, but it did. Any living creature can change, if sufficiently motivated and given the necessary resources. The challenge is finding the resources and motivation."

She lets that one sit for a moment without an answer, then redirects the conversation. "You don't seem too motivated to finish your coffee. Not your thing?"

Admittedly, it's nice to shift to a lower-stakes conversation. "Makes me too jittery, especially when my adrenal glands are already in overdrive."

She laughs. "Either you have one hell of a poker face, or you must be really low-key when you're not amped up."

"The only thing amped up right now is my nervous system, but that's more than enough. Makes it hard to think clearly." The wall of bodies has thinned enough that I think I've spotted an opening to the door. That means it's time for me to go. "If you'll both excuse me, I'm going to leave while I can get to the door without running people over. Thank you both for your honesty. And, B'Elanna, thank you for keeping me distracted. That helped more than you know."

"Yeah, sure. What are friends for, right?"

I need one hand to control my chair, but I'm used to needing a second hand free to help negotiate tight spaces. That would mean laying the tray on my lap, which at the moment would cause burning pain. So maybe this is a good time to use the chair's navigation system. Assuming that it works, it would allow me to keep the empty tray in my free hand and off my lap.

"Why do I feel like I should be wishing you luck?"

I laugh. "Let's hope I don't need it."

Once I make my way through a gauntlet of what I presume are chairs and reach the kitchen counter, Neelix hurries out to collect the tray from me. "How was the meal, Admiral?"

"My stomach is still a little sensitive, but what I was able to eat was very filling. Thank you. And I especially appreciate the second helping."

"It's my pleasure. I—" He looks toward the door, as if checking that no one else is listening. "I confess, I don't really know what the protocol is for serving an admiral. I hope I did all right."

I suspect that a lot of the uneasiness I'm sensing from the crew is due to my rank. Most members of the admiralty are royal pains in the ass, and their reputations have a tendency to precede me. Evidently that hasn't changed in the last 117 years.

Hoping to put him at ease, I smile. "You made me feel welcome. That's the only protocol I know of. And, at any rate, I haven't really earned my admiral's hat in this century, so for now I'm just Katrina. I'll see you at breakfast?"

"Bright and early. I'll be here."

_Voyager_'s bulkheads and lighting are visually difficult, and trying to see and make sense of anything just gives me a headache. I need to quit trying. Following the curved and segmented corridor walls is easy, but the air pressure on the side of my face is strong enough to set my overstimulated nerves on fire. Also, moving at this pace is gratingly slow even for me. I feel like a rat groping its way along the walls of a maze, too blind to venture any farther out.

I'm trying to cooperate with the Doctor's rehabilitation plan, but either he's overestimated my ability to adjust to a non-visual existence or he doesn't understand that that's what he's asking of me. Although it's far more compact than what I had as a child, this chair's technology is mostly familiar to me. I understand that microsensors can keep me moving straight and that the camera in my prosthesis can help me find the turbolift door. And those programs do have their place. The problem is that, as a child, I was taught not to be reliant on technology. I was taught to use my own senses and to let other people help when I needed it, and that's how I learned that most people are fundamentally good. Mostly, technology was what I used to survive my time with Daddy.

"This is ridiculous." Maybe I am too old to be a 24th century blind person, and _Voyager_ is stuck with an anachronism. They'll adjust. And if they don't, I'm sure the Delta Quadrant has inhabited planets where they can leave me. "I'm too old to start over."

Generating an echolocation signal with my tongue illuminates the entire corridor for a split second. A picture emerges, familiar in its properties if not its exact contents. My occipital cortex starts processing the new auditory images, and the feeling of groping along a wall vanishes. Hearing the breadth and length and direction of the corridor allows me to look ahead, adjusting my position more toward the center of the hall and picking up to a more reasonable speed. The pressure on the side of my face eases, and with it the pain.

That's better.

I start scanning the bulkhead for doors. The first two sound like they lead to rooms, but the third has the bright, hollow sound of a small shaft. That'll be a turbolift. I stop to skim the side of the door for a call button and find it around what's now head level. So far, so good.

An empty car arrives, and I get on. "Bridge."


	4. Making Changes

"Admiral on the bridge."

I've always hated having attention drawn to my arrival, and Captain Janeway's bridge is currently the last place I want to have my rank thrown around. "Next time, skip the ceremony. Is Captain Janeway in her ready room?"

"Yes, Admiral. It's just down those stairs."

It's been almost 120 years. I can't believe we're still designing ships' bridges with steps. But all right. I can hear steps if they're going up, but they disappear in the other direction. My chair is programmed to negotiate elevation changes automatically, so I won't worry about the physical act of getting down them, but I would like to know where in the hell they are in the first place. The space immediately ahead is obstructed by a small console, but larger banks of consoles to both my left and right, each followed by broad alcoves, suggest two possible paths. "I'm sorry, Mister—"

"Lt. Ayala, ma'am. Do you need assistance?"

"Just information." I could use technology to scan for the ready room door, but I need to know who these people are. "I can't see where you're pointing. Port or starboard? And may I assume that I'm headed for one of the alcoves?" To be fair, I can't even see that he is pointing. But some words and phrases, like _those_ and _there_, tend to be accompanied by gestures, so I'm assuming.

"Starboard alcove. At the foot of the first flight, there'll be another set of stairs on your right. Sorry, Admiral; it won't happen again."

Flag officer ranks come with their own reputation, especially as applied to those of us with command school training. For _Voyager_'s crew, that likely means that they're expecting to interact with me the same way they interact with Captain Janeway. It'll take them a while to understand that I was made from a different mold. "There's a learning curve for all of us, Mr. Ayala. Thank you."

The Doctor and I negotiated heavily over how this chair should handle, and stairs were one of the many points that had to be adjusted. Again, I suspect that its initial programming was inadvertently meant to suit Captain Janeway: fast top speed, multiple alerts for approaching elevation changes, and a quick descent. I prefer to move at a steady pace with minimal alerts because that's the pace I perceive at. In theory, the chair's programming has been adjusted, but obviously I haven't tried it yet and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't vaguely concerned about being sent on a thrill ride.

That never happens. The control pad vibrates once to warn me that steps are approaching, and the chair proceeds forward at a steady, controlled pace. That gives me a chance to look ahead, past the foot of a console on the bridge's upper deck, to the alcove where Janeway's ready room is located.

From the base of the first flight of stairs, my echolocation signal illuminates a recessed door that's too short to be set entirely on the level of the main deck. Even if Ayala hadn't warned me about the second flight of stairs, and even if my control pad hadn't warned me about them, I would have inferred that they were there. At the bottom, I lean forward to look for the door chime and then wait.

"Come in." As soon as she realizes it's me, Janeway jumps to her feet. "Admiral-"

I wave it off. "Just Katrina, for now. I'd like everyone to get to know me first without rank as a barrier. Do you have time to talk?"

"Of course." Moving out from behind her desk, she heads toward a pair of steps on the far left end of the room. The stairs and a glass railing lead to an elevated platform, where a sofa winds underneath the ship's windows. "Can I get you coffee?"

Apparently Janeway has a borderline coffee addiction. I've already heard this from multiple sources—Torres and Chakotay both, Neelix, even the Doctor mentioned it. "No thanks. I just came up from the mess hall."

Janeway bends down at a circular coffee table to pour herself a small cup. She sits the pot back on its tray, and the sound is metal on metal—silver, I presume—but if the service has either cream or sugar with it, I can't tell because she takes it black. "If you change your mind, I'm happy to share. How was tonight's dinner?"

"My body isn't quite ready for leola root yet, but otherwise dinner was fine. I enjoyed meeting your crew." I choose an open stretch of sofa and pull up to it. The Doctor and I haven't talked about how to get in and out of this chair yet, but it seems like it should be a fairly easy maneuver once I work out the logistics. "You don't eat in the mess hall?"

"Sometimes. Can I do anything to help?"

"I'll let you know once I figure out what in the hell I'm doing." Having to lean over my own knees to touch the seat cushion on the sofa makes it immediately obvious that face-on is a bad approach. The act triggers burning pain across my chest and diaphragm muscles. "I should probably have asked the Doctor how to transfer before I left sickbay, but it didn't occur to me that I might need it."

"Frankly, I didn't realize he had released you already. I gather that Chakotay was able to show you around?"

Once I push my chair's armrests out of the way, pulling up alongside the front edge of the sofa and sliding sideways could have potential, except that my chair sits slightly higher than the sofa cushions. Sliding sideways and down, then having to turn once I'm on the sofa, seems awkward at best and probably pain-riddled at worst. "Technically, he hasn't released me. He escorted me to the mess hall and left me there when I said I could find my way back."

"Oh." Janeway sounds amused by that. "I can see how _Voyager_ might be confusing at first, to the point where you might accidentally wind up in the captain's ready room instead of sickbay. An easy mistake to make."

From the same sideways position, the stretch of cushion just beyond my knees should work, assuming that I come off the front of my chair at an angle. Now that I have the logistics worked out, actually getting onto the sofa should be reasonably simple, although probably not pain-free. "Old habits die hard. I probably just gave the turbolift the wrong command."

Rather than laughing about it, Janeway leans forward as if I've said something odd. "I was always taught that turbolifts didn't have voice control until the mid-2260s."

Halfway onto the sofa, I have no choice but to keep moving. But her remark does give me pause. "I'm assuming you would have told me by now if my quantum signature was wrong."

"Yes, of course." She eases a bit closer, and the question only seems to intrigue her more. "But how do you know about quantum signatures? That would imply that you're aware of the multiverse."

"I am."

"How? Parallel universes weren't discovered until ten years after you were supposed to have died."

"I was privy to a lot of things that weren't common knowledge." Based on my conversations with B'Elanna and the Doctor, the loss of Control seems to have created an enormous void in the Federation's records, big enough to have sucked in all of the _Discovery_'s medical and engineering technology, not to mention everything related to Section 31. That gives me a technological advantage that seems strange, given that I'm in the future. "Also, your records have holes."

"So, turbolifts in the mid-2250s accepted voice commands, and the multiverse was known more than a decade sooner than we thought. You have the potential to rewrite our history."

"I'm disturbed by the fact that the truth was apparently forfeited in the first place." The Federation forgetting its own history is dangerous business. When that history involves artificial intelligences trying to end all sentient life in the galaxy, we can't afford to repeat those mistakes.

"I share your concerns."

That's why the hologram currently running sickbay makes me so nervous. As nearly as I can tell, the primary difference between the EMH and Control is that the EMH is benevolent. Granted, that's a huge one. But both programs are—or were, in Control's case—capable of acquiring and adapting to information, and in Control's case that adaptation led to the ability to self-regulate, which is when the problems began. There's no telling how far behind the EMH's program might be. Technologically speaking, the difference between the two is slim, at best.

Janeway leans back. "When the Doctor told me what you were facing, I would never have imagined that in a matter of hours you might be sitting on the sofa in my ready room and having a normal conversation with me. From everything we know of life prior to the 2260s, you shouldn't be coping nearly this well."

"Because of my position, I had knowledge of and access to Starfleet's most restricted information and cutting-edge research. From where I sit now, it feels surprisingly like a lateral transfer."

"How is that possible? It's been 117 years."

"To a certain extent, I've been able to infer what happened immediately after I died. Those events appear to have left the Federation in something of a dark age." Given the apparent scarcity of records from the time period, it's likely that I'll never know exactly what happened after that photon torpedo detonated. That's an ambiguity I'm going to have to learn to live with. "My sense is that you're just now coming out of it."

"A dark age." For a moment, Janeway sounds amused. "And here we've thought of ourselves as being in a renaissance."

"You probably are. Now."

"That does explain your temporal adjustment, but it doesn't explain how you're able to navigate so well. The Doctor said that you were functionally blind."

I landed on the sofa facing straight ahead, but in any conversation we say as much with body language as with words. In this case, I'm afraid I may be coming across as stiff, so I use my arms to angle my body to face her and lean an elbow on the back of the sofa. I hope it looks casual, but I'm in too much damned pain to feel it. "So I am."

"Giving the turbolift a voice command once you're inside is easy, but I don't understand how you identified the turbolift in the first place or how you negotiated the steps to my ready room. Those are not beginners' tasks."

"I'm not a beginner."

"No?"

"Even in my own century, Starfleet's records of my childhood medical history were sparse, and I understand from the Doctor that some of the records that did exist have since been lost. Like the Doctor, you assumed that I was blinded shortly before I received my eye transplants?"

"I did, yes."

"I was either 3 or 4 when I started losing my eyesight and 7 when I lost it entirely." Funny how quickly the coping mechanisms come back. I hadn't been blind very long when I figured out that claiming I'd lost my eyesight gradually made people more comfortable than the truth. "I only received my transplants when I was 15, midway through my first year at the Academy. By that point, I'd already been mobile for more than a decade."

"Yes, but that was—" She hesitates just long enough to figure out how to be delicate. "—quite a while ago."

I've never understood other people's reactions to aging. Having spent most of my childhood assuming I would never be this old, I wear my age with pride, and also still with a certain degree of surprise. "You can say it. That was 43 years ago. That's a hell of a long time to have been sighted."

"Almost my entire lifetime. I'm struggling to understand how you could simply shift your perspective after all these years. Surely you must have some sense of starting over."

I've been sighted for as long as Janeway has been alive. That's an interesting perspective. It gives me a sense of the depth and breadth of my career, something I haven't had before. I never learned to celebrate birthdays, so I'm not aware of the passage of time. Although increasingly I feel the cumulative effects of time on my body, I only ever age by one day. "Vision doesn't change how or what you experience with your other senses. The extra dimensions are always there to one degree or another. What changes is how you use and value them."

"But you haven't used them for quite a number of years."

"When the doctors at Starfleet Medical first proposed the transplants, they set my expectations low. They warned me upfront that I might not even have my eyesight when I graduated, let alone when I finished medical school and command school. I never expected to be sighted for most of my lifetime."

"I can't imagine what that must have been like."

"There's a certain freedom in knowing that you have the skills you need, if and when you need them. The possibility of losing my eyesight isn't something I've thought much about." It's more that I've lived, and am still living, with the understanding that my situation could always change.

"Remarkable."

"Most minds are. That's why they fascinate me. Changing the subject—Tell me something?"

"Of course."

"How did _Voyager_ wind up this far from home?"

Janeway's ready room is lighter than anywhere else I've been, the walls beige instead of gray, and the black of her uniform contrasts better. That makes it easier for me to read her body language. She settles back with her coffee cup and seems to be getting comfortable. "We were carried to the Delta Quadrant on a displacement wave generated by a piece of alien technology. The entity who brought us here was dying, and he was looking for someone capable of taking care of the local humanoid species, the Ocampa, in his stead. He decided we were unsuitable, but he died before we were able to convince him to send us home."

Courtesy of B'Elanna and Chakotay, I already know most of the details. I'm not looking for history; I'm looking for Captain Janeway's experience of it. "You couldn't use the technology yourselves to send _Voyager_ home?"

That's the question that undoes her. She shifts onto one hip, still clutching her coffee, and answers in a voice barely above a whisper. "We could have, yes, but the cost would have been too terrible. I couldn't bring myself to do it."

"What was the cost?"

"The technology would have fallen into the hands of people who would have used it to annihilate the Ocampa. I couldn't let that happen." Her hand goes to her mouth. "But it wasn't my place to make that decision, was it?"

"You had to make some choice. From what you just told me, using the device to go home would have been as much of a decision as destroying it."

"That's true."

"As it is, you made the choice that preserved life. You upheld one of the Federation's highest values. Why rethink the decision now?"

She shifts again, curling one foot underneath her. "Because it's cost this crew a great deal. The longer we're out here, the more I feel the weight of the sacrifices they've all had to make."

"You use the word 'sacrifice' as if it's a negative thing."

"By definition, to sacrifice is to give up something valuable."

Thinking back to my last conversation with Chris, I wonder if he had to deal with these same feelings of guilt after I died. _Voyager_'s computer may have a few of the answers I'm looking for, depending on how closed-lipped he was in his logs, but chances are good that I'll never know. And maybe it's better that way. "To sacrifice is to give up something valuable in exchange for something perceived to be even more worthy. Sacrifice is connected with altruism, which is psychologically healthy."

"It's also hard."

"And what's hard is what makes you strong." I should know. My life has been nothing but hard, from my first run-in with Daddy to the one that cost me my eyesight to losing Gabriel and then the 80,000 souls on Starbase 1 and the soul-wrenching decision to destroy Qo'noS to avoid even more death if we did nothing. But the result? I'm strong enough to wake up in the 24th century, pull myself into a mobility chair, and hit the ground running. I wouldn't trade my experiences even if I could.

"But isn't there a limit to what a crew can withstand before they begin to break down?"

"Of course, but I can already tell you that _Voyager_ is nowhere near that point." Under the imposter Lorca and their experiences in the other universe, _Discovery_ had reached that point. It was painfully obvious to me from the day I boarded after they came home. "Everything I've seen so far suggests that, overall, your crew is in fine shape."

"How can you be certain so quickly? You haven't even been on board for a full day."

"Because I know what to look for, and because I'm very sensitive to group dynamics. Maybe it's their captain who's tired?"

"Tired of worrying, yes."

"Then don't. Captain, this is a remarkable crew. If B'Elanna hadn't volunteered the information, I would never have suspected that this was anything other than a completely Starfleet-trained crew. And I guarantee that those sacrifices and hardships are at least partly responsible for the transformation that your crew has evidently undergone."

She nods, and at least for the moment she does seem to relax. "I do know that this is a strong crew; it's easily the best I've ever commanded. But, admittedly, it's nice to hear that from an objective third party. I can only hope that when we do get home someday, our own admiralty will judge us as kindly."

At the mention of judgment, I hold up my hands. "All I'm making are observations. I have absolutely no right to judge anything you've done here, good, bad, or otherwise. I have my own decisions to be reckoned with. And if history has deemed me forgettable, I'm more grateful than you'll ever fully realize."

"Being a flag officer during a war, I suppose that you must have had a number of hard decisions to make."

It's ironic. I'm reasonably comfortable talking about the decision to commit genocide with B'Elanna, but with Janeway I don't feel comfortable getting anywhere near the conversation. "Let's just say that I survived a real-life _kobayashi maru_ scenario with a winning solution, but only because I knew when to listen to someone other than myself."

Janeway sips from her coffee, stalling the conversation for a moment. "We should discuss where you're going to fit in on _Voyager_."

"Agreed. I do have command training and experience, and I'm happy to help in a pinch; I also intend to get my psychiatry skills up to modern standards. But based on everything I've observed, I'll be most useful to you and the crew as a therapist and counselor."

"Just based on this discussion, I tend to agree. You've already given me a great deal to think about. I appreciate that." She shifts again but stays curled up where she is. "I'm curious. Why did you come here tonight?"

"B'Elanna asked about you at dinner; I needed to understand why you weren't there. Now I do."

"B'Elanna asked about me?" That fact seems to surprise her. "Then we really have come a long way. When she first came on board, she hated me."

"To listen to her talk, that was a long time ago. Maybe you should eat with your crew more often."

"It isn't just the guilt," she says, straightening. "Command school taught us that the captain should maintain her distance from the crew."

"As should a psychotherapist, but those rules weren't meant to isolate us. In _Voyager_'s case, it wouldn't be feasible or healthy. The principle of command separation assumes that we're only a few days or weeks from the next call or letter home, never more than a few months from the nearest starbase where we can socialize with a peer. The truth is, most command school rules won't apply to _Voyager_'s situation."

"I suspected as much, but without guidance from Starfleet Command I've had no way to know which rules to apply and which to ignore. Chakotay and I have talked a little about this, in a very general way."

"Have you?"

"To complete our journey, we'll likely need to become a generational ship. Even at high warp, we originally estimated that we would need 75 years to get home. And even though we've found a few shortcuts here and there—shaved off a few years—it will still take well over half a century."

"Then you do understand that you'll need to make changes as the journey lengthens. In that case, the best thing I can tell you for now is to think of the rules you learned in command school as guidelines, not hard and fast rules. That should help you begin to make the shift."

"Thank you. I'm a scientist by training and inclination and only come to command secondarily. I feel completely unprepared for the reality of what I've gotten myself into. And since my original mission didn't call for a ship's counselor, I've had to make guesses as to how I should proceed. Your insight is going to be invaluable to me."

"As I said, based on everything I've heard from your crew, you've done an excellent job so far. They seem very secure, and it's clear that they care a great deal about you."

"That's very reassuring."

"But … ?"

"But I can be extremely headstrong, and—" She shifts further onto her hip, opening herself up and resting her head on her hand. "I don't enjoy the weight of having to be my own superior officer."

Admittedly, I didn't see that coming, but given everything she's told me, I do understand it. She's more worn down than she lets on. "Unlimited power isn't all that people make it out to be, is it?"

She sips from her coffee, then rests it in her lap. "It's the most isolating thing I've ever known."

"Then you're a strong woman to have borne it for this long." My power in Starfleet was never unlimited in the same way that Janeway's has been, but close enough at times. The weight of it is crushing. "How have you been managing?"

"The power, or the loneliness?"

"Since you're aware enough to ask the question, both."

"In any case, it doesn't matter. The answer to both questions is the same: not very well, I'm afraid. Chakotay does tell me when he feels I'm out of line, but then we fight about it and I'm always in a position to win, which only makes the isolation worse." Her head dips, and she taps one fingernail on the side of what sounds like a porcelain coffee cup, holding it close to herself without drinking from it. "I'm keenly aware that that isn't a true balance of power, and I would very much like to normalize my relationship with Chakotay."

There's something about the way she says that. Are they an item, or at least attracted to each other? I can't tell, but it's certainly interesting. I'll have to keep my fingers on that one until I understand what I'm hearing. "In that case, you're in luck. At this point in my career, even if you didn't want an admiral on board, I'm probably not capable of being anything less. From all the accounts I ever heard, I was born with an opinion."

Janeway laughs, face momentarily buried on the back of the sofa. "My mother says the same thing about me. She likes to tell people that she knew she was in trouble when I came out kicking and screaming."

She has a beautiful laugh. "Well, if me being an occasional pain in your ass will help you, then you've got it. Although you may be sorry."

"Not half as sorry as I've been. Thank you."

"You're welcome." We'll have time to negotiate later what exactly that relationship will look like. For now, it's enough that she knows she's no longer alone. "So, since you've already brought up your mother, what kind of family did you grow up in?"

"My parents were both very traditional. I come from a long line of Starfleet officers on my father's side; he was a vice admiral at the time he died. My mother's a farmer; my younger sister is an artist. Why?"

If her father was a vice admiral, that might explain why she would gravitate toward a stranger with the appropriate rank as an authority figure. "Because this far from Federation space and without the support of Starfleet Command, you're caring for a large, blended family more than commanding a starship. Your experience of having been part of a stable family will, and should, inform your command decisions as much as your Starfleet training, possibly more."

"That's going to be a big mental shift for me, but it's one that I can work on. What about you? What kind of family do you come from?"

Sooner or later, someone was bound to ask that. And I suppose I did lead her right into it, didn't I? Well, all right then. The truth. "I had the kind of family no child should have and the kind I resolved never to pass on. My mother left when I was three, and my father was not a kind individual."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Fortunately, it was a long time ago—a very, very long time ago now—and although I only lived with them part-time, I did have people who loved and cared a great deal about me."

"You spent summers with extended family?"

"I never knew my extended family; as far as I'm aware, they didn't even know I existed. No, it was nothing so organized. My father had an apartment in Champaign, and that's where I was registered for school, but he sent me to stay with an acquaintance of his anytime he had the chance. She lived in a tiny, ultra-traditionalist artisan community called Argall just 10 kilometers south of Champaign. That's really where I grew up."

Janeway bolts upright, lowering her coffee cup. "I've been to Argall."

That's ridiculously improbable. Even when I was a child, there might have been 200 people in the entire community, and the only connection to modern civilization was a tram stop from Champaign on the nearby highway. "You have to be putting me on."

"My family is from Bloomington, Indiana. That's only—"

"—about 240 kilometers away, right. I know Bloomington." It's nice to talk about home for a moment. What happened to my surrogate families in Argall, I'll never know. Beyond basic electricity, the community chose not to own technology, so their lives will have been lost to Federation history. But it's nice to know that the community itself still stands. "So what brought you to Argall? It's not exactly on the tourist maps."

"As I mentioned, my parents were traditionalists; they wanted my sister and me to see that a way of life like that could still exist, even in the 24th century. I was only 10, but I remember the trip vividly. A beautiful place, very peaceful, but very much a world unto itself. Moving between that and Champaign must have been difficult."

From my perspective, the only real difference between Champaign and Argall was the noise and the computers in the big city. "I suppose I did it often enough and from such a young age that it didn't faze me." What made the transitions hard was Daddy. "Now, I need to switch the subject on you. When was the last time you ate?"

"You mean a meal?"

Laughing at her breaks every therapeutic rule I know of, but it is honest and I didn't come here as a therapist. "I mean something more than coffee."

"Too long ago." She uncurls from the sofa, then leans forward to set aside her cup. "Sometime before you appeared in sickbay, I think, but I don't remember specifically. I was trying to clear off my desk, but it's a never-ending quest. I wonder if Neelix still has any supper left."

"He should still have at least one serving of leola root and agrazza stalks. Based on B'Elanna's and Chakotay's comments, I don't suppose anyone would have asked for extra servings."

Janeway groans. "I'm afraid to ask about the leola root."

"It was supposed to be coleslaw." Now that I've figured out a workable procedure, the only trouble with transferring back into my chair is lifting myself up high enough to clear the seat. Fortunately, my arms are long enough to give me leverage. "Is it supposed to taste like wet tree bark?"

"Unfortunately." Down the steps from the seating area and partway to the ready room door, Janeway stops and touches my shoulder, unaware of the pain that radiates away from her touch. "Katrina—"

I stop to look up at her, then see her offering a hand and reach for it. "What's this?"

"Thank you. No matter how much you may have going for you, you are adjusting to a lot all at once. To throw yourself immediately into our situation despite all of that—"

"—is self-serving. But you're welcome."

"Self-serving? How do you figure that?"

"This is my family now. Your situation is also mine. And I'm almost 60 years old, which means that this is most likely where I'm going to spend the rest of my life. I can't afford to be uninvolved."


	5. The Choice

"At last. I was beginning to think you might be lost."

"I had trouble with the leola root. I also eat slow."

Sooner or later, I'm going to have to make peace with the idea of sharing a starship with a self-aware computer program. I can't spend the rest of my life in conflict with this damn thing. And since his program does seem to be well-designed and stable, it's possible that there never will be trouble. It's possible that I'm being paranoid without reason.

That said, I've seen it happen twice recently. Control's program was designed to help us protect the Federation, and it took an artificial intelligence from the future to corrupt it, but the fact is, a program meant to save us tried to destroy us. And while Airiam's cybernetic enhancements saved her life, they also allowed her to be manipulated by Control after its own evolution. That possibility is why I told B'Elanna that I trust people more than machines. As a psychiatrist, I know that people can be manipulated just as easily through brainwashing, but the entity that results is still subject to humanoid limitations. Computers, on the other hand, are designed specifically to process information at a rate faster than we humanoids can, which gives them a terrifying amount of power.

"Doctor, you and I need to talk."

"All right." He sounds cautious. "What about?"

"I need you to understand what happened leading up to my death. I haven't shared this with anyone else on _Voyager_ yet, and I need to work through it with you before I do."

"Of course. But I don't understand why you want to try and work through it with me first. If I may be frank, Admiral?"

"Katrina. And, yes, of course."

"I am the only member of this crew with whom you've shown any sign of discomfort. I can only attribute that to the fact that I'm not organic."

"That's exactly why I need to talk it through with you. We almost lost the Federation to the artificial intelligence that was meant to help us preserve it. Frankly, your program terrifies me." There. I've said it. "But I also realize that that fear is unfounded."

For the first time in quite a while, his tone softens. "We should discuss this in my office."

I point across the room, toward a convex partition wall consisting of a metallic bulkhead supporting transparent aluminum. "Behind the glass wall?"

He grunts. "Now I understand why you insist on echolocating."

"I want you to know that I genuinely did try. I did. But I've been visual too long to learn to be anything else."

On the concave side of the partition wall, he moves a pair of chairs to make space for me, then turns one to sit in it so that we can talk without a desk separating us. "If a tongue snap can allow you to recognize a clear wall from that distance, I was wrong to have suggested that you try. I hope you can excuse my ignorance. Research on Human echolocation is ancient enough that I'm sure you're aware of it, and it's extremely crude by modern standards. For the 160 years since you received your transplants, the state of rehabilitative medicine for blindness has focused on visual sensory replacement rather than cross-sensory substitution."

"It's fine. I've made my peace with being an anachronism."

He shifts. "I've attempted to bolster them, with limited success, but my psychological and behavioral subroutines often still leave a great deal to be desired. If my comments have been less than tactful, I apologize. Please understand that it was, and is, unintentional."

"Fortunately for you, I have thick skin. I've withstood far worse and from people a lot closer." Like my father. "No harm done."

"Good, because the Hippocratic Oath forms the core of how my program operates. As long as that remains the case, I'm incapable of intentionally doing harm. That's the most important thing you should know."

"Shortly prior to the war, Starfleet began using an artificial intelligence program called Control to help us assess and eliminate threats. It worked well at first. But the program became corrupted by an artificial intelligence from outside the normal spacetime continuum. It exterminated the admiralty that had been operating it, and every time we tried to stop it, it attacked us."

"And one of those attacks resulted in your death."

"Yes."

He gets up and walks back to a bank of what look like consoles on the concave bulkhead behind his desk. "Once it became aware of itself, it began to believe that it was superior to organic life, so it chose to exterminate the organics around it."

"It tried to exterminate all sentient life across the entire galaxy." Rather than sit here and wonder what he's looking at, I join him at the console and activate my chair's standing mechanism. Isotropic abdominal and knee restraints deploy, holding me upright so I don't collapse. Then, once I figure out which screen he's activated, I query my chair's reading program to see what he's looking at. _{Image: male face, species: Serosian}_ _Dejaren, HD25 Isomorphic Projection. Deactivated: Stardate 51186.2_ "Please tell me this wasn't a friend of yours?"

"Hardly. A few weeks ago now, _Voyager_ was hailed by a ship that, as it turned out, had been commandeered by a rogue hologram who felt the same way. We didn't know that at first, of course. He lied to us. He had killed his organic crew, and he very nearly killed Lt. Torres before we realized what he had done and before she was able to deactivate him."

"Sounds about right. Now give him access to Starfleet's most powerful fleet of ships and weapons, and you have Control."

"This program. Control." The Doctor deactivates the screen and lowers himself into the chair behind his desk, the one he usually occupies. I sit my chair again right where I am, beside the desk, and he turns to face me. "It developed the ability to alter its own programming at will?"

"It appeared that way, yes."

"Then it's possible that your fears are more well-founded than you realize."

"Explain."

"My program was only designed to supplement an organic medical staff in cases of emergency, so I was programed with extremely minimal personality subroutines and what I recognize now as an appallingly poor bedside manner. Far worse than they are now. Frankly, the program as created was completely inadequate to our current situation. Some months ago now, I attempted to improve my personality by adding character traits from historical figures, not realizing that the behavioral subroutines could interact in unanticipated ways. The additions I made compromised my program without me being aware of it. Fortunately, the resulting EMH did no permanent harm and Lt. Torres was able to correct the disaster that I created. I should hope it goes without saying that I've learned my lesson and won't be altering my program again anytime soon. But because of that experience, I can't assure you that your concerns are baseless."

The damned program is already there. He's self-aware and has control over his own programming. Shit.

"I realize that was quite possibly the last thing you wanted to hear."

So where does that leave us? "Give me a minute." Essentially, it leaves us with a computer program that needs to be dealt with like any other living being, no different than the organic members of the crew.

"Of course." The Doctor starts to get up. "Computer, deactivate—"

"No, wait." If this were any other crewmember, that isn't the message I would want to send. Right now, the Doctor's program seems to be functional and healthy; after all, he seems just as disturbed by all of this as I am. But I have to assume that, like anyone, feeling alienated could lead to unwanted behavioral changes. "I didn't mean that you needed to deactivate yourself. I just need time to think before I react."

"Oh." He sits again, slowly. "If you don't mind my asking, what are you thinking? I would suggest restricting my program, but, at least to a certain degree, my ability to perform as _Voyager_'s CMO depends on my ability to manipulate and reconfigure my program as needed."

"Of course it does." A computer program could never make an adequate Chief Medical Officer for a starship full of humanoids. He was programmed to learn from his environment in order to do a particular job, and that's what he's done. "That isn't at all what I'm thinking."

"Then what?"

I'm thinking that love is a choice. And it's a choice I have to make. "Before you even knew who I was, you gave me the best medical care this battered old body has ever seen. And despite the fact that I haven't been especially friendly toward you, you've been far more tolerant than I deserved." If I can love the man who blinded me twice, I can love a hologram who's done nothing but be kind to me.

"You've undergone trauma; I understood that. Had I understood sooner what exactly it was, of course, I might have made somewhat different choices, but I suppose that we've both survived each other. Someday, when you're ready, I would be very interested in hearing more about this Control. Perhaps I could learn from its mistakes."

"Given that I suspect you share a similar amount of control over your programming, I think that's wise. But I'm going to be spending a lot of time in sickbay for the foreseeable future. We'll have plenty of time to talk."

"If you're referring to your rehabilitation, I assure you that you'll adapt quickly. Especially now that you've established your perceptual preferences, I suspect you won't need long."

"I do want to talk more about that, but that actually wasn't what I meant. You and I each have something the other wants. We should trade."

"I don't understand."

"My psychiatry license is 117 years out-of-date; I'd like you to help me correct that. In exchange, I can help you fully master humanoid behavioral psychology and shore up your psychological subroutines in a way that's safe."

"But why would you do that? Given what I've just told you about my program, and what your own experiences have been—"

Most people think of love as a feeling. It's more than that. Love is also an action, something we deliberately engage in moment by moment. As often as not, the warm feelings follow; they don't always lead. "Because given what I know of your program, I think it's the only way." The fact is, actions speak volumes, and today the Doctor has done a better job of loving than I have. "And based on what you've shown me, you're too precious to lose."


	6. Happy Place

"Admiral." All I have to do is raise my eyebrows at Neelix and he stammers out my name instead. "I mean, Katrina. You're up early."

Aside from Neelix, the mess hall sounds empty, and everything but the galley itself is dark. Instead of raising the lights so I can strain to see through the glare, I leave them off. "I have the gene for a six-hour sleep cycle; I need less sleep than most people." My circadian rhythm isn't entrained to _Voyager_ time yet either, and the rhythms themselves are probably off because my hypothalamus is still showing signs of abnormal activity. "I hope you don't mind company this morning."

"Of course not. Oh! I'm so sorry, I don't have any coffee made yet. Let me get that going right away."

"Not on my account, please. I prefer tea."

Halfway out from behind the counter already, he stops and goes back to chopping. "You too?" Apparently as an afterthought, he adds, "Commander Chakotay and Lt. Commander Tuvok are also big tea drinkers."

"Smart men."

"Do you need any help?"

I've been up for a couple of hours already, familiarizing myself with _Voyager_'s specifications. Once the Doctor realized what I was doing instead of sleeping, he offered to give me a tour of the ship. Afterward, he let me explore sickbay's replicator. Now that I know I'm essentially looking for an open food synthesizer slot, I should have no problem finding it and ordering a drink for myself. I just need a minute to look around. "I don't think so."

"If you change your mind, just say the word."

Last night, most of the orders I heard being placed were coming from this general vicinity. And there it is: a long, narrow slot recessed into the bulkhead, its polymer frame protruding to varying depths. When we worked with the sickbay replicator, the Doctor suggested approaching at an angle to avoid the lower control console and also to avoid having to lean over my lap or twist at the waist to retrieve my drink. "Rooibos tea, cold brew, large."

"Cold brew? Well, that's different. Most people on _Voyager_ drink their tea hot, and I've heard of iced tea, but never cold brew."

"It's smoother than hot tea, and I can't burn my taste buds on it." Last night, after we discussed my perceptual preferences and my experiences with negotiating the crowded mess hall, the Doctor converted my chair's steering mechanism to a brainwave control module. That means I can hold my tea in one hand and still use the other to look around, which seems like it's going to work better. I make my way to a small table near the galley and offload my drink and the PADD I brought with me.

Given that the mess hall is unoccupied at the moment, I should explore while I can do it without disrupting anyone. Overall, the room is at least twice as wide as it is deep, and it seems to be laid out more or less on a grid. That should make it navigable, but I still need to fill in the details.

The table I've chosen was designed for two occupants and is arranged perpendicular to both the galley and the windows where I sat last night. A broad, shallow trench subdivides the table into halves. The trench is more than wide enough to accommodate my tea mug, and I think the food trays are long enough to span it.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I admit, I hadn't thought about that." Neelix lays aside whatever he's chopping and bustles out from behind the counter. "Let me move a chair for you—"

"Actually, I think this should work fine."

He stops, not returning to the galley but also not advancing. "Are you sure? It's no trouble."

"I am. I'm trying to meet as much of the crew as possible, so I'd like to leave chairs available. I'm just going to look around before other people start arriving. How much time do I have?"

"Probably around 30 minutes, maybe 45. Breakfast won't be ready for an hour, but people start coming in before then." He puts a hand to his face, partially muffling his voice. "I wish I could think how to make the space more accommodating for you. I ordinarily take great pride in making sure people feel welcome when they visit the mess hall."

The spaces between the tables are narrower than I consider comfortable, but my chair can move directly sideways. It's not a big deal, and I wish he wouldn't make it one. "It's laid out well; I already have a sense of the organization. I just want to fill in a few of the details."

"I, I see." He uncovers his mouth but doesn't sound convinced.

If he wants to make me feel welcome, all he needs to do is relax and let me look around. But getting irritated with him isn't going to make this situation any easier. Quite the opposite, in fact. So with tension building in my upper body, I stop for a few seconds to coerce my muscles into relaxing and to breathe slowly. "Making me feel welcome is easy. I can tell you how to do it, if you'd like."

"It would certainly make my job as morale officer easier."

Morale officer. According to the Doctor, Starfleet began posting counselors on board ships assigned to deep space missions nearly 50 years ago to help deal with the pressures of extended space travel. Unfortunately, _Voyager_ wasn't assigned to deep space when she launched and didn't have a counselor on board. Since the EMH program doesn't include those subroutines, the role has devolved onto a number of personnel in _Voyager_'s case, including Commander Chakotay, Lt. Commander Tuvok, and Mr. Neelix. It seems to be working, so that's something I want to complement, not disrupt.

"The best way to make me feel welcome is actually to pay no special attention to me. I'm happy to chat. I just don't like to be fussed over. If I need something, I'll speak up."

"You didn't last night. Sorry, that's probably not something I should say to an admiral."

Fortunately, backtalk has the opposite effect on Katrina. The honesty makes me laugh. "Admittedly not. But since I'm still Katrina right now, it's fine. Last night was somewhat different."

"Oh?"

"The Doctor was having me experiment with a more sophisticated method of navigating, and it wasn't working. This morning I'm back to my old way of doing things, and it seems to be working better. I promise, I'll speak up if I need something. Right now, I mostly just need time to look around and see what's here."

Neelix heads back into the galley. "If I can be of any assistance, just let me know."

As long as he can do it without fussing, he could provide me with information. "I know there's a larger table somewhere at the back, but are most of the tables this smaller size?"

"Mostly. The big table you were sitting at last night is in the back corner by the replicator."

Following his directions, I work my way back and over to it. The big table sits directly under the space where sound reflects down from the arched ceiling and ricochets off the glossy surface of the oversized windows. I can't get over how enormous _Voyager_'s windows are. _Discovery_'s, and even the _Enterprise_'s, were barely more than portholes by comparison. From where I sat last night, I check my orientation to the table I chose this morning and to the other places I've already landmarked: the replicator, the galley, the door I entered through. Then I check the distance to the replicator wall and spot the corner that Neelix mentioned. "You give good directions. Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm glad to be able to help."

Putting my back to the end of the big table, I follow the window and a row of smaller tables toward the opposite end of the room. Approaching the far corner, the tables give way to a sofa and an oversized coffee table. The moment I reach the coffee table, something equally long and low, but softer and less glossy, becomes audible just beyond it, flanking the far wall. I move to investigate and find an ottoman, easily large enough to hold three or four adults.

"Katrina? Do you mind my asking, how much can you see?"

"With my eyes, not much. I can sometimes see the colors on people's uniforms, but that's about it. Turning on the lights creates glare, and mostly all I see are gray walls anyway, so lights don't do much for me."

Beyond the ottoman, there's another exit that's directly opposite the one I entered from. From there, I make my way to the galley to see exactly how it's shaped. Directly ahead, facing the door I entered from, there appears to be a narrow opening into the galley itself. The counter is L-shaped, with the long arm running parallel to the corridor wall and the short arm turning toward it.

"So, before you ended up stuck all the way out here with us, did you live on a starship?"

"Yes and no. I've had an apartment in San Francisco for a while, but lately I've been hopping from one starship to another. And before my promotion, I did serve on a starship not too different from _Voyager_. What about you? Before you were here, where were you?"

"Here and there, mostly. I was a merchant. I had a lady friend on Ocampa; she came here with me, actually."

"Kes?" He pauses, and I guess that he's waiting for an explanation of how I know her name. "The Doctor mentioned her. From the way he described her, it sounds like she was a very special person."

"She evolved." He goes back to whatever he's chopping, but slower than before. "Not that long ago. I still miss her."

I still miss Gabriel. The last time I saw him in person—the real Gabe—would have been before the war. He went home to Argall with me for Thanksgiving, and after dinner on Friday night we took a bottle of single-malt out to my surrogate mother's backyard and watched the Leonids meteor shower. We talked about marriage. We were both just drunk enough to realize we wanted to be 100% sober when we finished the conversation, so we left it with the promise to talk later. And then the war started, the _Buran_ went down, and I lost him. "You always will."

Before Neelix can answer, the doors near the replicator open. Someone comes a little ways in, then stops. "What's wrong, Naomi?"

I can't see what's going on, but mothers have a distinctive way of talking to their children that's actually an outgrowth of the language acquisition process. I recognize the tone of voice. _Voyager_ already has a child on board.

"That's Admiral Cornwell. She's a friend. You don't need to be scared of her."

Focusing on the mother's voice as I head back to my table, I can just see a mass of what might be pink somewhat above the deck. She must be carrying the girl.

I smile. "How old?"

"Eighteen months, but she's half-Ktarian."

"Still very young. Even in Ktarians, fear of strangers sometimes lasts for three or even four years, and I'm guessing she probably hasn't had many chances to meet new people."

"A few, but mostly on the holodeck."

I haven't been to _Voyager_'s holodeck yet, but the ship's systems manual made it sound essentially similar to the one I saw at the Starfleet Research Center. "Well, that's better than nothing, but it isn't quite the same as finding a stranger sitting in your kitchen in a funny-looking floating chair first thing in the morning." Mom and daughter have finally ventured close enough that I can smile directly at the girl. "Hi, Naomi. My name's Kat."

That does it. "Like a kitty cat?"

"That's right, like a kitty cat."

Now that they're closer, the pink-clad figure looks distinctly humanoid, especially when she starts to squirm. "Can I get down now, Mommy?"

I like kids. I don't want any of my own, but they're cute as long as they belong to someone else. Specifically, I like how honest kids are, and I like the way they think. Admiral Cornwell is scary, but a lady named after a kitty cat must be okay. The thing of it is, most adults basically process the same way; they've just learned to hide it from themselves better. Admiral Cornwell makes people uneasy, but they'll talk to Katrina.

On the floor, Naomi comes close but, thankfully, stops just shy of actually touching. "Why does your chair float?"

"Because this chair is how I move around. I can't walk, so I use the chair to go places instead."

"Why can't you walk?"

Explaining impairment to a child can be tricky. Kids are literal, and they generalize more than they should. Tell her that I got hurt, and the next time she or someone she knows has a minor accident, she'll worry about that person ending up paralyzed. But at eighteen months, Naomi won't know about spinal cords yet, so she isn't quite old enough to understand the full explanation. "I can't walk because my legs don't work. Something special happened to them, and they couldn't be fixed."

"Do they hurt?"

I believe in telling children the truth, but that's a surprisingly hard question to answer. Although I can't actually feel my legs, I am still vaguely aware that they feel like they're on fire. "Just a little."

She thinks about that for a bit, then finally moves in close enough to touch the back of my hand, which happens to be the only part of my body that doesn't respond to touch with pain. I smile at her, and she answers by laying her hand over mine. "You have a lap, but you can't use it? That's very sad."

Laps are safe havens for kids, a kind of sacred ground. In any other scenario, I wouldn't hesitate to let her on my lap, especially given that my legs are far less uncomfortable than most of my other body parts. But kids sitting on laps don't just sit still on your legs—they climb all over your trunk, cuddle up next to you, _touch you_. And the skin on my chest is still so hypersensitive that it hurts just to have clothes on. The thought of holding a squirming child makes my stomach lurch. But first impressions are everything. "If you'd like to sit on my lap for a little while, your mom could put you on it."

"Yes, please."

Mom steps in to pick her up, only to hesitate. "Admiral, are you sure? I don't want her to hurt you."

"Katrina's fine for now." I'm going to have to find some way for the crew to distinguish when I'm wearing my rank and when I'm just me. I'll have to give that some thought. "And it's all right. Pain and I are old acquaintances; I learned a long time ago not to let it boss me around. Making new friends is more important. You are … ?"

"Ensign Samantha Wildman. Thank you for being so patient with Naomi. It means a lot."

"It's my pleasure."

Rather than brace myself against the pain, I distract myself by smiling and studying Naomi. The advantage of having her on my lap is that I can see more than just what little my eye tells me. She's a good size for her age, she smells clean, and her clothes feel new; she's also carting a toy under one arm, so clearly she has things that give her comfort and security. She's absolutely adorable, and she seems very well cared-for. Given everything else I've experienced on _Voyager_, that's exactly what I expect to find, but, given my own childhood, I can't not check.

Wildman starts moving toward the door. "Neelix, are you sure you don't mind watching her for me this morning? You know I feel bad asking you to babysit while you're getting ready for breakfast."

"I'm her godfather. Why would I mind? And besides that, Naomi usually likes to help me in the kitchen. Isn't that right, Naomi?"

As far as I can tell, despite the fact that she's right under my nose and I'm watching, she doesn't answer.

Wildman comes back and squats down in front of my lap. "Promise me you'll be good for the—for Katrina. When she needs you to get down, you do it and don't fuss. Promise me."

"I promise, Mommy."

"And sit still for her. No squirming."

"We'll be fine, Ms. Wildman. I'm doing all right." As soon as Wildman retreats, I shift my attention to reconciling Neelix's comment with Naomi's lack of a response. "So, Naomi, what do you usually help Neelix do in the kitchen?"

She answers by burying her head against my chest. Her shoulders hitch, then drop.

I suck in a breath of pure fire, then force my muscles to expel it. I smile down at her as her head tilts up toward me. "You don't know?" _Keep breathing. Slow in, slow out. Slow in, slow out. Slow in, slow out._

"Naomi, you should tell Katrina how you like to help me stir and pour and mix things." He hesitates, giving her a chance to respond. When she doesn't, he goes on. "You're not going to help today? All right then. I guess I can manage all by myself this morning."

Something seems to be poking my chest, so I check to see what it is. It's Naomi's forehead. Instead of the usual Ktarian forehead lobes, she has three small horns. Interesting. Ktarians have more forehead variations than any other species I know of: divided lobes, supraorbital shelves, now horns.

"What about you, Katrina?" Neelix moves from the chopping block to something a little farther back, and the rush of a live flame tells me he's moved to a burner. "I don't suppose you cook, do you? Most people I've met from the Alpha Quadrant don't seem to."

"As a matter of fact, I do. I started cooking when I was probably four or five." That's actually the reason I came down here to read this morning. Thanks to my surrogate mother, and despite Daddy's best efforts to the contrary, kitchens are my happy place, and I haven't had access to one since I was home the last time, before the mess with Control started. With my nervous system stuck in a state of hyperarousal, I hoped that coming down here might be calming. "Between the war and another crisis that followed it, I haven't spent much time at home lately. I've missed it."

"In that case, my kitchen is your kitchen."

"Thanks. I'll take you up on that."

"Maybe we could even trade recipes sometime. I'm sure that the crew would appreciate the variety. I don't know about other starships, but this one certainly runs on its stomach."

"Most do." We talk food for a while—specifically, brainstorming ways he might tone down the mildewy taste of leola root without losing the nutritional value. I'm not sure that we get anywhere, but it's the first purely pleasurable conversation I've had in a long time, possibly even since before the war. It's a breath of fresh air, and exactly what I need.

"Well, would you look at that."

My attention shifts. Naomi's breathing has evened out, and a light touch confirms that she's sound asleep against my chest. "Is she usually this calm?"

"No, not at all. But this is a little early for her to be up. Ensign Wildman had to help out with an early shift in engineering. Are you okay with her sleeping on you like that?"

Maybe it's her weight triggering a different, less aggravated part of my nervous system, or maybe it's the relaxation of talking food near a working kitchen again, or maybe it's both. At any rate, the pain in my chest has dulled and, for the first time since the blast, it's nearly gone. "Actually, I am. I'm good."


	7. Associations

"This seat does not appear to be taken."

Whether it's the insistence on being Katrina or just time and exposure, the greetings have been looser and warmer this morning. "Go right ahead. You are?"

Unless they're suffering from an identity or memory disorder, most people don't hesitate before they answer that question. This woman does. In fact, she sets her tray on the table, pulls out the chair to my right, and folds herself into it before she answers. "I am Seven of Nine. You may call me Seven."

"Pleased to meet you." I hold out my hand and she accepts, but only after a moment's hesitation. What's behind that? On an intuitive level, I suspect the unusual name must have something to do with it. Given that I've just dropped in from the 23rd century, I can probably get away with asking. "Seven. That's a different name."

"It is—" Another hesitation. "—a Borg designation."

Oh boy. Something tells me we're about to enter another one of those conversations where I miss every other word. "Sorry, I've still got some fairly sizable gaps. A what designation?" I lay down my fork so I can concentrate.

"No apology is required. Your position is unique." That said, she's squirming. "I was assimilated by the Borg when I was a child."

All right. At least I think I understand the basic context of what she's trying to tell me. She was born one species and was taken in forcibly by another species when she was young. So childhood trauma definitely explains her hesitation. "I see." This is just the start of Full Day #1 and I'm already tiptoeing around childhood trauma over a breakfast table full of inedible food. Welcome to _Voyager_.

She hasn't started eating either. "You have not yet been familiarized with the Borg."

"I'm afraid not."

"You do, however, know of them. They were referenced by both Zefram Cochrane and Jonathan Archer."

Then it clicks, and I know what she's talking about. "The cybernetic aliens from the future that Cochrane described. Those were the Borg?"

"Yes."

"And they assimilated you."

"Along with my parents, when I was six. Captain Janeway recently liberated me from the Collective." She picks up a utensil and it connects with the tray, but she doesn't seem to be eating. "My Human physiology has only recently begun requiring the ingestion of solid food. The process is still somewhat unsettling."

So she's Human. "If it's any consolation, even for someone familiar with the process of eating, the food being ingested is itself somewhat unsettling." While we're chatting, I pull my bowl of porridge closer and feel around the tray for where Neelix might have left the spoon. "What about replicator rations?"

"I considered that." And she sounds like she's still considering it, or at least reconsidering. "However, I wish to be assimilated to this crew. Most seem able to tolerate the food Neelix serves."

"I hear you. It does seem to be a rite of passage."

"A Starfleet admiral should be exempt from such expectations."

"I already stick out like a sore thumb. Replicating meals isn't going to help me blend in any more than it will you." I gesture toward her tray with my spoon, then plunge it into the bowl of porridge. For now, that's far enough. I switch to the fork and collect a small load of scrambled eggs to keep my stomach from rumbling. "The eggs aren't too bad if you can get past the iron aftertaste."

"Yours are different from mine."

Breakfast this morning is poached blood eggs with spiced leola root porridge. I don't have a lot of hope for getting the porridge down, so the eggs had to be edible. "I asked Neelix to scramble mine instead of poaching them; it's the only way I can swallow eggs."

"Texture is not irrelevant to the process." Judging by her tone, this is a revelation.

"Not at all."

She eats cautiously at first, alternating between the poached blood egg and the porridge, and eventually deems both acceptable. Taste, apparently, is irrelevant. "My parents were the first Humans to study the Borg," she says after a few minutes, without preamble. "I accompanied them on that mission. As part of that research, they kept detailed field notes. _Voyager_ recently discovered the remains of their vessel and also their field notes."

In an ideal situation, therapy sessions don't begin over bowls of leola root porridge, we're not surrounded by a sizeable number of the crew, and I know a little something about the subject before we start discussing it. But if here and now is where she's comfortable starting the process, I guess this is where we start. "You visited the ship's remains?"

"Along with Commander Tuvok, yes."

Although I haven't met Tuvok yet, I recognize his name as one of the people who have been responsible for maintaining _Voyager_'s morale. That intrigues me because the name sounds Vulcan. "And, how was it?"

"It—" She lingers over another bite of egg, scooped up but untouched. "It is an experience I do not wish to repeat. In time, however, I believe I may benefit from it."

"Bring back memories?"

"Of our assimilation, yes. I recalled the event in complete detail."

I nod, but that's as far as I'm comfortable leading her in the middle of a busy mess hall. Instead, I gesture toward her food. "It's probably best not to associate eggs and porridge with memories of your assimilation. But if you'd like, I could help with working through what you remembered."

"You can do nothing to help. You have no idea what it means to be assimilated." If the words sound bitter, I think it's unintentional. Her tone is matter-of-fact.

All the same, I tread carefully because she's right. I know nothing about Borg assimilation. "I don't." Still, I can assume a few basic things about her experience, at least long enough to finish this conversation. "But I do know what it means to have a childhood that was unconventional by most Human standards, and I know what it means to have had it interrupted by violence. I also know what it means to have had to come to terms with what someone else did to me."

She finally eats the bite of egg that's been lingering on her fork. "I remember things," she says, and for the first time her voice begins to soften. "Pieces. But I lack the context for understanding them. Is that something you could assist me with?"

"If you'd like, of course."

She swallows a few more bites of egg, then dips into her porridge again and eats a few bites. "I believe that would be acceptable."

Although I'm not ready to try eating my own porridge yet, I raise a spoonful and hold it near my mouth, as if I might eat it. Right now, it's enough just to smell it. "As soon as I get a private space set up, I'll let you know."

She eats quietly after that, then stands and begins to clear her tray. But just before she turns away, she pauses. "Thank you. I confess that your kindness has been unanticipated, given that much of my physiology is still cybernetically enhanced."

She knows more than she's saying. Has she talked to the Doctor? I wonder. "Some of the finest people I ever served with were cybernetically enhanced. It doesn't bother me. But you're welcome. I've enjoyed getting to know you."

"As I have you. What should I call you?"

"Katrina's fine for now."

After she leaves, my attention natural shifts outward. I recognize a few voices from last night. Chakotay and B'Elanna have come in and settled at a table on the far end, near the sofa. I also recognize a few of the other crewmen who said hello last night, although I can't begin to remember all their names. That said, the one voice I haven't heard yet is Janeway's.

Most of my breakfast is still untouched, several minutes later, when someone else stops near the empty chair on my right. "I would point out, Admiral, that to willingly starve oneself is illogical."

For the last seven years of my career, I've spent a great deal of time in the company of Vulcans: Terral, Patar, Sarek, Spock. Especially during the crisis of a failing war, I came to appreciate their reliance on logic over emotion. And I sure as hell came to appreciate the fact that, with the exception of Patar, every single one of them understood that occasionally humor is the only logical response to a situation.

"It doesn't count as starving myself if I am actually ingesting food at some rate. It counts as dawdling." Laying my fork aside, I offer the Vulcan salute and then gesture toward the open chair near where he's standing. "Have a seat. Please. And right now it's just Katrina; I'll have plenty of time to be an admiral later. If I guessed that you were Tuvok, would I be right?" His shoulders are yellow.

"You would."

I would say he's about 40, but he could be two or even three times that and I might not know. I learned a long time ago that you can't necessarily tell how old a Vulcan is by looking or even listening.

He sits, then picks up a utensil and … doesn't eat with it. Interesting. Vulcans generally don't procrastinate, and I've never seen one fidget. "Given that mealtimes occur three times a day, I regret that Neelix's cooking is one of the more tedious aspects of life on _Voyager_. I find his culinary touches somewhat distressing."

Based on a remark Neelix made before breakfast, it seems likely that his tongue contains fewer taste buds than the rest of us, leading to dishes that are hard for those of us with normal taste buds to swallow. There's probably not a lot we can do about it. Finding ways to give constructive feedback may help, but tolerance is most likely the only real solution. "He means well."

"Indeed. However, good intentions offer no nutritional value, and your plate is still nearly full."

"That's because I haven't really tried to eat yet, other than a few bites of egg. This is all preparation work."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm still clinging to the belief that eventually I'll be able to swallow leola root. In the meantime, I'm just getting myself used to the smell."

"Your apparent dawdling is not, in fact, dawdling at all."

"Not entirely." The idea behind moving the food progressively closer is to associate the mildewy scent with the fact that I'm relaxing and getting to know people.

"Fascinating. I shall be interested to find out if your technique is successful."

"It better be. I'm getting hungry." Deciding I'd better set a good example, I switch to actually eating a few bites of egg. "So, I've heard your name in association with a few different things so far—drinking tea, counseling, landing parties—but I still haven't managed to figure out what your actual job is."

"As Chief of Security, I often do participate in away teams."

I catch the corrected terminology and file it away for later, but I've been around long enough to have a small collection of phrases for the same thing. I most likely won't remember this one for a while. "I see. In that case, I'm guessing that you're eventually going to have questions for me."

"Indeed. We will need to discuss your tactical requirements. We have found the Delta Quadrant to be a dangerous place, and it is not unreasonable to anticipate that you may at some point be required to defend yourself."

"Or someone else. Are you still using hand phasers?"

"We are, although the specifications are somewhat different to the ones that are familiar to you."

"Well, that's something. Have you ever heard of an auditory sighting mechanism?"

"I have, and I will see that one is made available to you. Your rank notwithstanding, however, you will be required to pass a proficiency exam before I issue you a phaser."

"Of course, and I'll probably need some practice time before I can pass that. It's been a hell of a long time since I shot primarily by ear—my first year at the Academy, if that says anything."

"Indeed. Once your tactical skills have been established, I believe it would also be a wise precaution to run a series of tactical scenarios involving yourself and various members of the crew."

For a number of reasons, I'm sure that's a good idea. I can always benefit from practice, especially in this new body, and _Voyager_'s crew will need to learn how I maneuver and respond. But there's more to it than that. I'm an admiral. Even when I'm not in command, I don't take orders. There's going to be a learning curve once The Admiral shows up. "Of course."

Finally eating, Tuvok sounds surprised. "I admit to having anticipated more resistance."

"Pretending that I'm not out-of-date would be illogical in the extreme sense of the word. Besides that, there are going to be a few bumps along the way once I do start wearing my rank. It's probably best that we get them out of the way before it matters."

"Agreed." He swallows a mouthful of porridge, then reaches for his tea. It's one of the stronger Vulcan blends, originally grown somewhere in the narrow semi-temperate equatorial region. "You appear to be approaching your situation with a degree of emotional restraint that I find refreshing, and also somewhat surprising for a Human."

As the tenor of the conversation takes a more familiar turn, I switch to holding another spoonful of porridge near my mouth, where I can smell it while we talk. "As part of my psychotherapy doctoral program, I spent a year on Vulcan learning traditional Vulcan psychotherapeutic techniques. I was very young and impressionable at the time. Part of that training included becoming aware of the potentially destructive nature of my own emotions."

"Fascinating. Very few Humans are permitted to study Vulcan psychotherapeutic techniques even now, and even fewer are able to achieve mastery of those techniques. Most find the challenge vexing, at best. I gather that your experience was somewhat different."

"That year—" It's hard to explain what that year meant to me. Obviously, I didn't devote myself to Vulcan logic or attempt to suppress my emotions in daily life. But I did develop a sensitivity to my own emotional state and to its effect on my rational thinking. I learned to master my emotions rather than allowing them to master me. "That year was transformative. I've never been the same."

Tuvok eats for a while in silence, and I eat another few bites of egg. When his porridge bowl sounds as though it's nearly empty, he asks, "Were you able to master the psychotherapeutic techniques you studied on Vulcan?"

"Yes." Many had to be modified based on the fact that I can't initiate a mind-meld myself, but that turns out to be the simplest part of treatment. Any Vulcan can do that, including the patient. The difficult part, and the part that matters, is the ability to restore order and logic to disorder and chaos. "Why do you ask?"

"The need is not urgent. If, however, you are able to provide treatment at no risk to yourself, it would perhaps be wise to conduct an assessment at some juncture. Since our arrival in the Delta Quadrant, twice my logic has been disturbed by outside forces. I believe that it was restored completely following each incident, but I would be poorly equipped to detect flaws in my own logic, if any were present."

"Of course." Vulcan healers are notoriously hard to come by outside of the homeworld, so most Vulcans in Starfleet are adept at maintaining and repairing their own minds. That said, disturbances in logic are always to be treated seriously and evaluated by a healer at the earliest opportunity. "And, yes, I can provide treatment. No one was more skeptical of a Human providing treatment than Master T'Keth, and even she eventually agreed that I had the necessary skill."

"That is welcome news. Have you had cause to use those skills since the conclusion of your studies?"

"I have." Although I haven't maintained an active psychotherapeutic practice for a number of years now, Vulcan psychotherapeutic healers were in such high demand in Starfleet of the mid-23rd century that I would occasionally get called on to provide treatment just because I was closer than Vulcan itself.

After that, Tuvok finishes his eggs quickly, promises to coordinate my tactical training later in the day, and excuses himself.

I eat for a while by myself, slowly making my way through the pile of scrambled eggs on my plate. The mess period begins winding down.

And then, just when I think I may have run out of luck for the morning, someone else appears on my right. "Excuse me. Admiral?" It's a young woman, her voice timid.

I smile at her and gesture toward the open seat. "Just Katrina for now. You are?"

"Tal Celes, ma'am." She sets her tray down and pulls out the chair but doesn't sit. "I'm just a crewman, not anyone important. I just wanted to welcome you to _Voyager_."

That's an interesting introduction, and one that sets off all sorts of internal alarm bells. Instead, I focus on something more basic and gesture toward the seat again. "Everyone matters, crewman. I'm trying to place your name, but I don't recognize your species. Help me out?"

"Oh." She finally sits. "You wouldn't recognize it. I'm Bajoran."

I've at least heard of them, and I understand from Chakotay and B'Elanna that a lot of Bajorans came on board in connection with the Maquis. Whether or not this young woman was part of that contingent, I don't dare guess. "Ah, that explains it. So which is the family name, first name or second?"

"Usually the first, but I switched it around when I joined Starfleet. Makes it easier to blend in."

"I see. Well, you're the first Bajoran that I'm aware of meeting, so please forgive me if I make any gaffes." That said, I hold out my hand for a handshake, and she accepts it. Her hands are petite and strong, and yet what really grabs my attention is the sheen of sweat on her palms. She's nervous just saying hello to me? "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Celes."

"Thank you. I've never met an admiral before."

"Well, I guess that makes us even, then. I haven't met a Bajoran, and you haven't met an admiral. What do you do on _Voyager_?" Her shoulders are yellow, but Operations could mean any number of things.

"I'm a sensor analyst, but mostly I try to keep from screwing up." What I meant as an innocent question, apparently isn't. She doesn't even look up from her tray. "I'm not very good at my job. I'm not smart enough."

All sorts of alarm bells go off around that cluster of statements. As soon as I get set up with an office, she's my first priority. "Once I have a private space for us to work in, why don't you come by and see me? If you're having that much trouble with your job, let's see if we can find a reason."

"You think there might be something wrong with me?" Contrary to her words, her tone says that the idea might actually be a relief.

That hardly surprises me. Basic humanoid psychology tells us that when people perceive themselves as struggling and failing more than the people around them, their self-esteem suffers unless they're given a specific reason for their difficulty. In that case, a diagnosis can actually help boost self-esteem in the long run.

In the short term, of course, answering requires me to choose my words carefully. "Not wrong, just different. Chances are, your brain works with information differently than most people's. If we can figure that out, we can find a job that you'll be good at and feel good about."

"Thank you. That's really nice of you." She picks up her spoon, then pauses again. "No one's ever paid that much attention to me before. I don't know why you're doing it, but thank you."

"You're welcome."

Not too much time passes before someone approaches on my left. "Admiral?"

"Harry." I wave him toward the empty seat, then offer my hand across the bowl of porridge. "It's just Katrina for now. Pleased to meet you."

"Thank you, ma'am. Welcome to _Voyager_." He sets his tray down, then sits behind it. Other than a general sense of his build, mostly what I get from him is still nerves.

"Thank you. I'm afraid I didn't catch your last name yesterday."

"Kim. Harry Kim." He picks up his utensils. "Good morning, crewman."

"Lieutenant."

It takes a little prompting, but eventually I get them both to relax enough to start talking. Tal talks about growing up on an occupied world, her decision to join Starfleet, and feeling like she can never do anything right. Harry talks about his girlfriend back home, the way playing his clarinet makes him feel, and being sensitive about still being the junior-most member of the senior staff.

While they chat and I take mental notes, I keep getting the porridge closer to my mouth and breathing in deep lungfuls. But eventually their conversation slows and Harry asks, "Am I talking too much, ma'am? You haven't eaten anything."

"Nope. Leola root doesn't usually go down, so I've been sitting here trying to acclimate myself to the smell. I'm hoping that by associating the smell with pleasant conversations, I'll eventually be able to swallow it."

"Oh." Tal sounds disappointed. "Listening to me talk about all my insecurities probably backfired. It probably made it worse. I'm so sorry."

Well, that more or less means it has to go down. Damn. "Nonsense." This time—more for their sakes than mine, if I'm being honest—I take a small spoonful of the stuff and actually put it in my mouth. It's cold now, of course. But I swallow, and this time my throat doesn't walk it back up. "Well, what do you know."

"You did it!" Tal sounds as surprised as I feel. "It went down."

All the same, I wash it down with a mouthful of tea to flush the taste out of my mouth. "Looks like I won't starve after all. The two of you just made my day."

"Are you serious?" Harry sounds genuinely surprised.

"Absolutely." I point at the bowl, then down another spoonful and don't even need to wash it down with tea this time. It really isn't that bad, once you get past the aftertaste. "Without good company, that's just a bowl full of a mildew-ridden tuber. It's the company that makes the difference." Just to make sure they understand, I tap my forehead.

Without exception, everyone says that it takes a couple of days for the body to acclimate to the stuff. A shift in associations seemed the most likely explanation.

"Oh." It takes him a second, but then his entire demeanor changes. "Oh. I'm glad I could help."

Tal straightens fractionally in her seat. "Me too. Maybe I'm not such bad luck after all."


	8. Tea

"Come."

I'm settling into my quarters. Commander Chakotay has put me on Deck 3, directly across the hall from Captain Janeway's quarters. Given that he's mentioned at least three times being concerned about her tendency to isolate herself, I'm not surprised to find myself here.

"It's Kathryn. I don't want to bother you. I just wanted to see if you were settling in all right."

My quarters here on _Voyager_ are larger than what I had on either the _Enterprise_ or _Discovery_, and they're almost larger than my apartment back in San Francisco. "I am. Thank you."

"Commander Chakotay mentioned that you had also talked about needing an office somewhere."

"It doesn't need to be large. I just need someplace to meet privately for one-on-one counseling."

"There's a small unused cargo bay directly adjacent to the bridge. With a little bit of work, we could refit that into an office for you."

"Perfect." I get the feeling that having my office adjacent to Janeway's is going to be a matter of convenience. She's apparently isolated herself since arriving in the Delta Quadrant, and she doesn't seem to know how to break herself free. Case in point: I didn't notice her at breakfast. We're both going to have our work cut out for us.

"I'll have the crew get to work converting the space into something habitable, but of course we'll leave it up to you to let us know what you need in the way of furnishings."

"A desk and a few comfortable chairs should be enough." I gesture toward the pitcher of tea steeping on the dining room table, then invite her to have a seat. I've had my chair partially standing for a while now, but I'm about ready to rest. "By tonight, I should be able to offer you tea."

She laughs. "My mother makes sun tea, but star tea?"

"All tea really needs to steep is time."

"Well, we certainly have plenty of that."

"I know. That's why I'm making tea—to remind myself."

Janeway settles at the table directly in front of the pitcher. "I don't understand."

"I ran out of time before I was ready; it made me realize that time is a luxury we won't always have. I'm making tea to remind myself that, at least for now, I still have time to spend."

"I've lived my entire life at warp speed." She pulls the pitcher closer and seems focused on it. "But sometimes you need to slow down, don't you?"

The good news about Janeway is that she's apparently capable of making small breakthroughs with very little prompting. It's applying those breakthroughs where I think she's going to struggle. "Speed has its place. Disarming a live photon torpedo, for instance." I grin at her, then sit my chair down adjacent to the table. Staying upright helps with the hypersensitivity and overall pain levels, but stamina is clearly something I'll need to build. For now, I need to rest. "But slowing down occasionally does have benefits, both physical and psychological."

"I'm not sure about that. The last time I slowed down for any length of time, I didn't get out of bed for months."

"Didn't get out of bed, or couldn't?"

She hesitates. "I realize that question shouldn't be hard to answer."

"Not necessarily. Depression makes a lot of things ambiguous. You didn't get help?"

"That was sixteen years ago," she says. "I'm at least vaguely less bullheaded now than I was then."

"You're also not suffering from clinical depression. But that's why you asked me to be your Chief Pain-in-the-Ass, right? I'm also your superior officer, your next-door neighbor, and I'm soon to be your bridge-mate. You can't get away from me."

"If I ever do become depressed again, that's probably to my benefit." She pushes back from the table. "Until then, I don't mean to keep disturbing you. I really did want to just check in."

"I'm the one who invited you to stay." She pauses where she stands, not sitting again but also not bolting toward the door, so I take that as a sign that she's still listening and go on. "Captains and admirals both live in bubbles, except among their own kind. Here, that bubble has to be big enough for both of us. There's a reason I'm wearing my rank very loosely right now. I need to make space here for me to be a person first."

"That's the second time you've said that—that you need to be a person apart from your rank."

"Because it's important. You need to make the same space for yourself. If you don't, you'll lose your perspective and become ineffective."

"That's completely counter to everything I've ever heard. We were always taught that the captain should maintain a certain distance from the crew."

"In the Alpha Quadrant, yes. When you needed a fresh perspective, you could always go home, spend time with your mom and your sister, maybe go out on a date with someone—"

"I had a fiancé when we launched."

We have that in common, then: we've both come to the brink of marrying someone, only to be separated by an unbridgeable distance. That ambiguity makes it hard, almost impossible, to move on. But that's all tangential to my current point. "All right then. You had a life and a family apart from your ship and your crew; you could always turn to them when you needed a different perspective. Here, your ship is home and your crew is family. You have no outside perspective. The people on this ship are all you have."

She pulls the chair back out and sits again. "I've already lost my objectivity."

"Is objectivity what they're teaching in command school these days? Well, they're in poor company, if that's the case."

"What do you mean?"

"The best commanding officers I've ever served with haven't been terribly objective either." Bob April, Chris Pike, and my Gabriel were quite possibly the least objective men I've ever met, at least when it came to the wellbeing of their crews, and that's what made them so endearing. I just read what happened to Chris, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Parts of it bother me, but not the parts that probably bother most people. In fact, the basic event doesn't even surprise me, because going into a flaming engine room to haul out cadets was quintessentially Chris. "What they had in abundance, and what I think you have, is something even more important."

"For a commanding officer responsible for 150-some lives, what could be more important than maintaining objectivity?"

"Having heart."

For a long moment, she doesn't answer. Then: "That sounds like the sort of thing my mother would say."

"Then you should listen to her." I've given Janeway enough to think about for now. Besides, if I don't get out of here soon, the Doctor is going to call down to find out if I got lost on my way to the turbolift. I motion her toward the door. "I need to get to sickbay so the Doctor can start my orientation. Come back tonight when I can offer you tea."

The tea pitcher is actually a practical matter: it should save me a lot of replicator rations. I already have everything I need to make tea for the next several weeks: a pitcher with an infuser, a supply of loose tea leaves, a couple of drinking glasses, and I can get water from the bathroom sink. But it also makes a nice metaphor for hospitality.

"I'll do that." Janeway stands and pushes in her chair, only to pause a meter or so away. "Wait. Your orientation?"

"I'm a doctor. Right now, I couldn't even tell you where the hyposprays are in sickbay, let alone the drugs to put in one or the medical tricorder to monitor their effects. In an emergency, I want to at least be able to perform first aid better than a first-year medic."

She follows me to the door. "I'm beginning to understand why you're making tea—to remind yourself that you have time to master everything."

"Exactly. I want to be up to speed now, but I can't be. I have to keep reminding myself that I have time to get there. And I will. This is the first step." Fortunately for me, the turbolift is an immediate left outside my door, dead center at the end of the corridor, so it's easy to find. "I'll see you later."

"I'm going up to the bridge, so I'll catch the next lift. See you later."

The door opens, and I get in alone. "Sickbay."

In the quiet of the car, my thoughts turn to Chris. What bothers me about what happened to him isn't the extent of his paralysis. Humans have been able to survive, even thrive, after being locked into paralyzed bodies for centuries, and we've had communications solutions for as long. The ability to signal yes and no means the ability to communicate thoughts, if presented with the alphabet; computers with cameras can track eye motions to record selections. What bothers me is that both of those solutions were either ignored or dismissed. When I said that the loss of Control seems to have triggered a dark age, I could never have imagined that level of darkness. What happened to Chris was barbaric.

And I'm bothered as hell by the fact that Spock kidnapped him and abandoned him on a planet where he would have only illusion to live with—and even more so by the fact that Starfleet allowed him to do it.

I've never been to Talos IV. But while I was on _Discovery_ to deal with the problem of Section 31, in the wake of locating Spock's shuttle, Chris sought me out and talked about leaving Vina behind on Talos IV. He talked about seeing her again when they were in the Talosian system. He talked about the power, and limitations, of illusion.

And Spock condemned him to a life of illusion that he could never lose himself in. That bothers me more than anything. Chris deserved better, and he could have had it.

"Admiral." The voice belongs, not to the Doctor, but to the man who's been avoiding me: Tom Paris. I think I see red shoulders. "Do you need treatment? The Doctor said he'd be right back, but I can call him—"

"No, no. He was just going to start orienting me to sickbay, that's all. You must be the Mr. Paris I've been hearing about."

"Guilty. It's, uh … " He holds out his hand, then runs the other through his hair. "Wow."

"My roommate at the Academy was named Paris. I don't suppose you're related, are you?"

"She was my two-times-great-grandmother." He runs a hand through his hair again. "What in the hell are the odds of that?"

It takes me longer than I expected for my voice to find its way through the emotion, and by the time the words do come out, my voice is rough. "The universe is inexplicably small sometimes." Linette and I stayed friends after the Academy, and she was one of the 80,000 souls who died on Starbase 1. That's why the loss of the base hit me so hard. I never had a chance to say goodbye. To run into her great-great-grandson now, 117 years and two quadrants later, is surreal. "It's good to meet you, Tom."

"Thanks." He turns away, as if glancing back toward the door. "Just don't expect too much based on the last name. I'm the family screw-up."

Setting the bar low? "I'm well aware of the weight of the Paris family name. You're not the first Paris to buckle under it."

"I'm not?" His surprise sounds genuine.

Huh. "Linette always swore she was going to publish her diary for her kids and grandkids to read, but she died before she had a chance. I don't suppose Mike ever published it for her, did he?"

Tom laughs. "You're on a first-name basis with Great-Grandpa Mike? Okay, so maybe you were right—it is a small universe. Uh, yeah, he did. It's one of the things my dad made me read growing up. Why?"

"You don't know?" I grin at him. "I guess she must've done a little bit of editing along the way—that or Mike did it for her." He idolized his mom, so that's a distinct possibility. "There was nothing about her getting kicked out of the Academy on her second week?"

"No. She got kicked out? For what? And how did she get back in?"

"I will tell you—I promise—but later, when we're not in the middle of sickbay, where someone could walk in. I owe her that much." The more I think about that first year at the Academy, my grin fades. Linette genuinely suffered under the weight of her family's expectations. Being privy to her struggles was one of the things that led me down the path of psychotherapy, as a complement to the psychiatry that I had planned on pursuing. "What I will tell you now is the first thing she ever said to me. I walked into our dorm room, sat my bags down inside the door, and she sat up on her bunk and said 'Yeah, I'm a Paris; don't judge me.' I had no idea what she meant at the time."

"That's not in there either. My dad thinks she was a saint."

"If we ever get the opportunity, I'll be the one to set him straight. In the meantime, I shouldn't be surprised. It seems a lot of my generation's history has been edited out—and not just out of the Paris family history."

"By the way, how do you know what she was putting in her diary? You didn't read it, did you?"

"How? It had a retina-scanning lock. Besides, I didn't need to snoop. She had a habit of talking out loud while she was writing; I don't think she ever realized she was doing it."

"And naturally you didn't tell her."

"And miss finding out what in the hell she was writing about me? Not a chance." It's been an unexpectedly nice surprise to connect with someone who seems familiar, and it does help clear out some of the mental cobwebs. "All right, Tom. You and I are going to get started without the Doctor."

"We are? I swear he said he'd be right back."

"That's all right. We're going to have to start slow because I'm on the back side of an adrenaline surge from hell and I'm getting tired. Right now, you shouldn't have any trouble keeping up with me."

"Okay. What are we doing?"

"First, let me get my bearings." I've spent enough time in here that I have no problem orienting to the primary spaces—intensive care bed straight ahead inside the circular alcove, biobeds along the wall to the right, the Doctor's office behind the curving glass wall to the left and a medical lab behind that. It's the details that I'm missing. "There's a console just in front of the ICU bed. What is that station?"

"Force field controls, surgical controls, data display."

"Force field." That's a smart innovation, something I could've used a time or two in my medical career. "Once it's activated, where does it begin? Behind the console?"

"Yes, ma'am." He moves past me into the ICU alcove and retrieves something from a mobile cart that never seems to wind up in the same place. "I don't suppose you've had reason to look at a medical tricorder lately, have you?"

"No, but I imagine there must be an accessibility setting somewhere." I put my hand out for it, and he passes it off. "If not, I may need to have my reading program adjusted—or, hell, I may even need to have a specialized medical program added. Everything's still a work-in-progress."

"Got it." I'm still studying the tricorder when he steps in closer again. "Uh, before we get too much further?"

I refocus on him. Every Paris is different, of course, but Linette occupied a lot of my attention for our first couple of years at the Academy. I burned through a lot of late-night study sessions trying to make up for the time I'd lost talking Linette through her latest family-induced identity crisis. "Yes?"

He puts out his hand, apparently offering another handshake. This time, his grip is cool and firm, and he seems to be looking directly at me. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Getting it. About my family, I mean. Most people don't."

"You're welcome. I wouldn't want to be judged on the basis of my family either." When all was said and done, Linette and I decided that was the one thing we had in common. "Everyone deserves the chance to stand on their own."


	9. The Visitor

"What do you think?"

The bulkheads in Cargo Bay 1 have been repainted beige to accommodate my vision, which I appreciate, and the ceilings have been lowered to make the space less cavernous, more inviting. There are no windows, of course—and I can't see outside well enough to complain about missing them—but B'Elanna insisted on installing a viewscreen on the far wall where a window might have been, and I have the option of tying in to the bridge's main viewscreen if I do want a view. There are also holo-emitters throughout the room, which means the Doctor can visit as often as he likes. In addition to the desk and two visitor's chairs that I asked for, they've also given me a replicator, a couple of armchairs suitable for longer conversations, and even a small sofa. With the addition of a few plants to soften the soundscape even further, this could feel very much like home. "I think it's far more than I asked for. Thank you."

"There's a surprise waiting for you on the side table."

Side table? I wasn't expecting anything like that, so I'm not sure where to look for one. It takes me a few seconds of scanning, but eventually I hear a long, narrow table flanking the wall near my desk, immediately adjacent to the replicator. My fingers only need a few seconds to find the pitcher and the glasses, plus a small selection of labeled containers that smell like tea leaves.

"Chakotay, Tuvok, and Neelix are all responsible for the tea. The glasses are from Tom's personal collection. I provided the pitcher. We wanted to say welcome."

"Thank you." I have no words. Over the course of my career, I've been lucky enough to serve with some of the best crews Starfleet had to offer. A week ago, I threw myself in front of a live torpedo to save one of them—so they could turn around and save another, a crew I was also damned lucky to know—and now here I am surrounded by another crew of Starfleet's finest. How in the hell do I keep getting this lucky? "Thank you."

"We'll let you settle in."

It hasn't really been all that long since I had a counseling office, but it feels like an eternity. Up until a week ago, I would have said that I didn't miss it and I wouldn't have been lying. Compassion fatigue had set in, hard. But now everything is new, myself included, and there's no place I'd rather be.

Since I haven't figured out any other way to transfer, I lower myself out of the partial-stand that I've come to prefer and ease into the armchair. It's comfortable enough, but I suspect it's the sofa I'll be using the most.

Just as I shift back into my chair, the lights flash, and for a moment I'm blinded by the glare from it. Then the light dulls, and I shake it off. Obviously, I'll have to have that checked out before I start bringing the crew in.

I'm just about to transfer onto the sofa when I realize that a shadow on the end is attached to something that has the size, shape, and softness of a body. "Who in the hell—"

"I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to sit on my lap."

My first thought is that he's far too old for these kinds of games. I expected it when the preadolescent boys in my school classes pulled the same stunt on me, but at 58 I expect better from my peers. Well, that puts him in another category I recognize. "Again, who in the hell are you, and how did you get in here?"

"Isn't it obvious? I appeared."

The same way I just appeared here last week? Okay, so I'm not dealing with a Human. "The light just now. That was you?"

"Not bad, I suppose. Considering. As for who I am, you may call me Q. I'm the one responsible for bringing you here."

I move to the far end of the sofa, a full couch-length away from him, and pull myself onto it. I like it—the proportions, the firmness of the cushions, even the fabric. This is going to be my favorite spot. "Not that I'm not grateful, but why?"

"Because occasionally the multiverse gets it wrong. And because humanity's inability to exist in more than one time period is pitifully constraining. Every few millennia, circumstances warrant an intervention. This was one of them."

I shift toward him on one hip and lift one leg over the other, leaning back on an elbow. "You brought me here specifically for _Voyager_. Why?"

"Let's just say that I owe Kathy. She helped me out of a tight spot not all that long ago—in your limited understanding of time, of course—and I've seen what will happen to her without some sort of intervention. That's where you come in."

That flags my attention. "What do you mean, you've seen what will happen to her?"

"I shouldn't tell you, but you already know anyway. Janeway's tendency to isolate herself is one of the great constants of the multiverse. Adding you to the mix is the only thing that hasn't been done in any other iteration of the cosmos. I suppose you could say you're my last hope."

"Why me?"

"I thought the two of you would be compatible." He shifts, minutely but not imperceptibly. "And because, let's face it, the multiverse was done with you."

"I need you to explain that to me."

"I mean that in every iteration of the cosmos in which that scenario exists, Katrina Cornwell seals herself in that blast chamber and dies saving the _Enterprise_. It's a universal constant, if you will. And a ridiculous waste, in my opinion. The multiverse had no further use for you."

"But you did."

"In a word, yes."

"And I suppose I'm expected to be indebted to you."

The damn letch is scooting closer to me. "Well, I hadn't thought about that, but now that you mention it—"

I uncross my legs and shift to a more stable position. "Get any closer and I'll break anything I can find."

He stops, hesitates, and finally shifts back away from me. "Feisty."

"Damn right."

He leans forward, and for a moment I gather that he's serious. "That's why I chose you, you know. You're just as stubborn as she is. She pushes everyone else away, or else they eventually give up. I don't believe you will."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because of that monster you called your father."

"He was my father. The fact that he was also a monster doesn't change that fact. What about him?"

"You loved him."

He's right. Because of the things my father did to me—not only demeaning me and injuring me, but deliberately hiding it from the people who might have helped me—I can't be neutral. I can either choose to love him for bringing me into the world, or I'll end up hating him for the way he forced me to move through it. Hate would destroy me, so I choose to love. "Yes, I do."

Q stands. He sidesteps down to my end of the sofa and holds out his hand. "The multiverse was wrong."

I hesitate, then take the pro-offered hand and pump it. "And I am grateful." Not indebted, mind you, but still. If I can love a monster like my father, I can also be grateful to a sketchy character like Q.

He releases my hand and turns as if to leave, only to stop. "Oh, and Katrina? Let's leave this conversation between us."

"Why?"

"I haven't always been this—docile—when I've visited _Voyager_ in the past. There's no need to excite the locals this time. Do we have an understanding?"

"Hell no. Get out of here."

He slinks away. "Yes, ma'am." And then the room flashes white again. When my vision readjusts, he's gone.

I sit for a few minutes, collecting my thoughts and entraining my heartbeat to the silence. Then I transfer back into my chair and head onto the bridge.

Janeway turns around to watch me descending the starboard steps. "Is everything all right, Admiral?" The semicircular command arena acts like an amphitheater, amplifying her voice.

Aiming toward the sound, I wrap around to the observer's bay and help myself to the bench, pushing my chair out of the way. "Everything's good."

* * *

Author's Note: That's the end, folks! A huge "thank you" to everyone who read and especially to those of you who took the time to review! This was originally meant to be the set-up for a series of short stories that would follow the crew throughout the rest of their journey home. At this point, I'm not sure if that series will ever come to pass, but I do have a few story starts already floating around on my hard drive that may eventually get posted. If you're interested in seeing the effect Cornwell's expertise might have on the crew as their journey lengthens, be sure to let me know! Until then, thank you so much for reading and for letting me know how much you've enjoyed this story!


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